


call it wound, call it beginning

by dayswithout



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 50,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29777154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayswithout/pseuds/dayswithout
Summary: Ferdinand opens the door of his rooms one morning and almost trips over the corpse sprawled across the floor.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 6
Kudos: 83





	call it wound, call it beginning

Ferdinand opens the door of his rooms one morning and almost trips over the corpse sprawled across the floor.

“Shit,” he hisses, stumbling backwards and grasping at the door frame. Then, “Fuck!” as he sees the man’s face, recognisable even with its grotesque rictus grin. He turns away, the sharp tanging smell of blood hitting him, and breathes in deeply through his mouth. Death on a battlefield he has become inured to over the years. This, though — this is different. A violation of sorts, finding a body in the corridors of his home.

When he has gathered himself again, he turns back, looking intently at the corpse as if to commit it to memory. He knows he ought to send for Hubert immediately, or even Edelgard — they will, of course, want to know about this — but he feels he owes it to the man, a member of his own retinue, someone he employed, to bear witness however he can.

The body is lying spread-eagled across the carpeted floor, one arm reaching out towards Ferdinand’s rooms as if, in his last moments, the man had tried to get there. His head is tipped back to reveal a gaping maw of a wound, stark red and jagged across his pale throat. Ferdinand notes, somewhere in the back of his mind where he can still manage to be detached and analytical, that there is no blood surrounding the body. There is no blood flow from the wound either and he is sure that, if he touched him, he would find him cold and stiff.

In other words, the man was not killed here and was not killed recently.

That is, someone left him here for Ferdinand to find.

There is a noise from the end of the corridor, and Ferdinand glances up to see one of his officials coming around the corner. “Stay back,” he says suddenly, but it is too late. She has seen the body.

She stops with a sharp gasp. “My lor— Sir?” she asks hesitantly, as if she thinks, for some reason, that he did this. That is when he realises that he is crouched over a dead body in the middle of an otherwise deserted corridor, so perhaps that conclusion is not the greatest leap of deduction.

“Fetch von Vestra, would you?” he asks, trying to appear calm and in control of a situation which he can feel spiralling through his fingers as time goes on. She swallows and nods, before turning on her heel and running off.

Well, he thinks, dropping to his haunches to crouch beside the body, suddenly exhausted. At least Hubert will be here soon. At least Hubert will know what to do.

*

With Hubert arrive Edelgard and Linhardt, the latter yawning extravagantly, until he spots the body and his eyes spark with something like interest. “Are you alright, Ferdinand?” Edelgard asks, brusquely, after glancing once at the body, but not without an undercurrent of concern.

“I am fine,” he waves her off and gestures to the corpse. “I could not say the same of Ansel here.”

“You know him.” Hubert does not ask, but Ferdinand nods anyway, before it registers that Hubert, leaning down to inspect the body, would not have seen.

“He is— he was on my staff. Worked to liaise with the...” he pauses and swallows, realisation shooting through him, and fast on its tail, horror. “With the Imperial Household.”

Hubert’s head snaps up. “You are sure?” Ferdinand nods sharply.

“Your Majesty, if you might excuse me,” Hubert says, standing. “It appears I have more important matters to attend to.” Edelgard nods at him, and he departs, leaving the three of them — and the corpse — alone in the corridor.

It is not that Ferdinand does not know Hubert’s duties in this matter, the reason why he left so abruptly, but such a departure stings oddly all the same. Perhaps it is in the way Hubert did not so much as glance in his direction the entire time. But — and he shakes himself a little — this is neither the time nor the place.

“Fascinating,” Linhardt murmurs from where he is crouched beside the body, interrupting Ferdinand’s reverie further. Ferdinand glances down to see him digging his fingers into the wound and looks away again quickly.

“Might you do this elsewhere?” Edelgard asks, grimacing. “I will have guards move the body down to the infirmary. And no doubt Ferdinand wishes to get to his work.”

“Yes,” Ferdinand says, inexplicably grasping onto this as a way out of the nightmare he finds himself in. “Yes.”

Edelgard appears to realise he is floundering and rests a hand gently on his elbow, just for a moment. “Come see me later,” she says quietly. “We shall talk this through with Hubert.”

“Of course,” Ferdinand responds equally softly. And then she is gone, gesturing to a pair of guards at the end of the corridor to take the body away.

Linhardt stays a moment longer, as if debating whether to say something or simply hurry after the guards, before deciding on the latter, leaving Ferdinand alone in the corridor and feeling more than a little overwhelmed.

“Sir?” The official from earlier is back. Ferdinand makes a concerted effort to pull himself together.

“Yes?” he asks.

“Will we— that is—” She struggles with words for a moment. “Are we to work as if nothing has happened?” she blurts out eventually. “I mean—”

“You will not tell anyone, no,” Ferdinand cuts her off, a little abruptly he will admit. “For now, it stays between us. I am sure von Vestra will be along soon enough asking questions, but until then, we wait.” She nods, and Ferdinand can see relief that he is taking charge flood her expression for a brief second before she schools her features.

“Yes, sir,” she says, then hesitates. “I actually came to ask about the Dagdan delegation. They have made a complaint about their quarters.” Ferdinand feels an incipient headache in his temple.

“What is it now?” he asks, almost fearing the answer. “Do not tell me, it is about the coffee.”

“Not quite, sir.”

“I suppose we had best get to work then,” he says wryly.

*

Later, much later, when the ambassador from Dagda has had his complaints dealt with and Ferdinand has worked his way through piles and piles of documents, his mind is still half on Ansel’s death when Edelgard summons him.

With a sigh, he waves away the messenger. “You do not need to wait to lead me there.” The messenger hesitates, as if unsure whether he can take Ferdinand’s word for it, but he leaves. Ferdinand scrawls one last note to himself, then puts down his pen. He stands, and then pauses, letting a wave of dizziness rush through him as he remembers he has not eaten since this morning. He briefly considers getting something before he meets with Edelgard, but dismisses the thought almost as soon as he has had it. It is better not to keep Edelgard waiting at the best of times, and this is far from that.

On the walk to her quarters, the headache that had situated itself around his right eye — which he had been staving off by focusing on his work and only his work — starts to make itself known. He grits his teeth and tries to will it away, but the ache remains despite his efforts. He really should have eaten something earlier, he thinks regretfully.

But there is no time right now, and all too soon he finds himself at Edelgard’s door.

Hubert is already there, of course, peering at some papers on the desk over Edelgard’s shoulder. He looks up as Ferdinand enters and Ferdinand is struck by a pang of _something_. Jealousy, perhaps, but that would be ludicrous. Longing? Whatever it is, he pushes it aside and focuses on Edelgard.

“Good, you are here,” Edelgard says briskly. “I was about to send Hubert out to look for you.” Ferdinand knows this is as close as Edelgard might come to say she was worried about him.

“I was not lost, if that is what concerned you,” he says lightly.

“No, well,” she says. “You are usually more punctual.” Ferdinand had not realised he had taken quite so long to make it to her quarters tonight.

“I do apologise,” he tells her. “But I am here now, so, what was it you wished to talk about?”

“This morning,” Hubert says. “I have initiated an investigation into my own ministry and yours to ascertain whether or not we have a leak. I will need to speak to those with whom Ansel worked, of course. I trust you will be able to direct me to them?”

“Certainly,” Ferdinand tells him. “Whatever I can do to help.” He pauses. “And what about the investigation into his murder.” He watches Edelgard glance at Hubert and knows instinctively that he is not going to like what she has to say.

“There will not be one,” she says calmly. Ferdinand feels his heart rate ratchet up and fights to appear unmoved. “It is… of secondary importance to discovering if we are to be betrayed, thus I have not approved an investigation.”

“So you mean, you are just not going to investigate it?” Ferdinand asks, forcing his voice to remain steady, even as anger floods through him. “You are not even going to _try_ and find out what happened?”

“Exactly that,” Hubert responds, as infuriatingly calm as ever, as if he does not even _care_. “I have not the resources to put into it, and the more pressing concern is whether the man leaked any information before he died. If we have a traitor in our midst, I wish to be apprised of it.”

“That man has a family, and you are just going to sit by and let them live out the rest of their lives _not knowing_? And you are okay with that?” Ferdinand is aware he is letting his emotions get the better of him right now, unable to maintain even a veneer of composure any longer. Certainly, the expressions on both Edelgard and Hubert’s faces say they believe as much, but he cannot let this go by. He will not stand aside and let this man, Ansel, be forgotten.

“It is more important we discover if there is a plot against the Empire,” Hubert insists.

“Oh, yes,” Ferdinand scoffs. “I forgot. Everything is for the good of the Empire. Saints forbid you start thinking about individuals for once!”

“Ferdinand,” Edelgard sighs. “We know this has… affected you, but we are not just going to let it lie! We are working on a solution.”

“One that does not actually _solve_ anything!” Ferdinand cries. “If I cannot— if our own people cannot be protected, then what is the point?”

“You act as if we are being entirely unreasonable,” Edelgard chides him. “We are simply weighing up the actions and determining which is best for the greater good.”

Ferdinand does not know what prompts him to say what he does next. Perhaps the anger, at the way they are so blithely dismissing a man’s life, perhaps the throbbing pain in his head. Whatever it is, he cannot stop the words as they spill out of his mouth.

“I suppose I should not be surprised,” he snarls. “Given that you spent much of your campaign doing the same, and walked through a river of blood to get here.” There is complete and utter silence. He can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

“I think we are done now,” Edelgard says frostily. Ferdinand cannot find it in himself to be sorry for what he has said though — he can see the value of having a ‘greater good’, but not if it tramples on individuals to get there.

“You are right,” he says standing. “I will bid you goodnight.” And with that, he turns on his heel and stalks out of the room.

He strides through the corridors as fast as he can, wanting to get away from the both of them. He could almost hate them, he is so furious.

He turns a corner into a narrow servant’s passageway and stops. Then, overwhelmed by his frustration, he slams a fist into the stone wall. Pain shoots through his wrist and he swears.

“That was foolish.” He did not hear Hubert approaching, but then, if Hubert did not wish him to hear his approach, of course he would not. Hubert takes his hand between his own and massages it gently.

Ferdinand is almost sure his heart is about to stop beating.

For once, Hubert is not wearing his gloves, and his hands are warm and surprisingly soft, cupped around Ferdinand’s own. His head is tilted towards Ferdinand, his extra few inches of height meaning that Ferdinand is enclosed between him and a wall, can see nothing beyond Hubert. Ferdinand can feel the tips of his ears heating up. He wants to lean in towards Hubert, to see what might happen.

“You are angry,” Hubert says eventually, voice shattering his train of thought. Ferdinand wants to laugh, abruptly, and not because anything about this is funny.

“Of _course_ I am!” He snatches his hand out of Hubert’s grip, annoyed that he has chosen to bring this up, annoyed that this is even a discussion they need to have. “I want to see justice!”

“There is no reason to believe that you will not.”

“There is no reason to believe that I will, either,” Ferdinand retorts, glaring up at Hubert. “But since you will not search for the culprit, then I will.” There is a moment of quiet. They are close enough together that Ferdinand can feel Hubert breathing, the expansion of his ribcage as he inhales.

“ _You_ will investigate his death.” Hubert’s tone is flat, but Ferdinand can sense the disbelief radiating from him almost tangibly. In all honesty, until now he himself had not considered this to be a solution.

“ _Someone_ has to. I will not let it go unpunished. And if you do not want to, then that leaves me.” A frown crumples Hubert’s face but, a little unexpectedly, he does not offer up further protest.

“You will be careful though,” he says. “After all, there is no way of knowing who is behind this. I do not want you to put yourself in unnecessary danger.” His eyes bore into Ferdinand’s as he speaks and Ferdinand finds himself trapped there, unable to look away, a fly caught in a spider’s web. A shiver runs through him.

“But you will not stop me?” Ferdinand asks, voice dropping to little more than a whisper. He watches Hubert’s eyes flicker to his mouth and away.

“No,” Hubert says. “Though I cannot offer my assistance. I have other concerns as you well know.”

A door slams down the corridor and Ferdinand looks towards the noise instinctively. When he turns back to Hubert, he has moved a pace or two away, as if he had never been so close in the first place. Ferdinand feels a lack of something — he does not know what — for it.

“Right,” he says belatedly. “Well, I am sure I will manage on my own.” Hubert looks at him for a beat and then nods once, before turning on his heel abruptly and walking away.

Ferdinand slumps against the wall and stares after him, heart thumping in his chest. It is as if Hubert’s presence alone had been a sort of gravitational pull keeping him upright and without him, he is unbalanced. He does not like the implications of that.

The thing is, they have been circling each other for a while now, drawing nearer and nearer with each turn. Gone are the days at the monastery where they took it in turns to needle the other until they got a reaction. By the end of the war, they were civil, even friendly, with one another; but this, recently? This is something new. Something new and something that Ferdinand does not really wish to assess very deeply. Not when he is almost certain that Hubert is in love with Edelgard.

Except.

It is in the way Hubert’s eyes rest on him sometimes, gaze hot and steady, the way Ferdinand shivers at the thought of it. It is in the way that Ferdinand finds his own gaze drifting to find Hubert at the most inopportune moments. He does not have a word to describe it, not just yet. But it feels somewhat like they are balanced on a knife-edge. Something will eventually tip them one way or the other.

But this is not a thought he wishes to dwell on, not when there is a killer to catch and a man’s death to find justice for.

He sighs and pushes himself away from the wall.

*

The next morning, the first thing he does is go and apologise to Edelgard. If he is honest, he is not sorry for what he said. Perhaps he is for _how_ he said it, that he was driven primarily by emotion, primarily by anger, but he cannot be sorry for bringing it up. If he is to be a good Prime Minister, he must push back against her sometimes, and this is one of them.

But that does not mean he is unable to apologise when necessary.

In front of the doors to Edelgard’s rooms, he takes a breath and knocks. When she calls out “come in,” he enters. She is sitting behind a large desk, reading through some papers.

“Oh,” she says in surprise when she looks up. “I thought you might be Hubert.”

“As you can see, I am not,” he says wryly, gesturing vaguely to his person. A pause. He takes a step further into the room. “I came to apologise for my behaviour yesterday. I was… not at my best and it was out of line.”

Edelgard looks at him assessingly for a long moment.

“If you are apologising, I feel I must do so also,” she says eventually. “Come, sit.” A little cautiously, wary of how to act after such an argument, he takes a seat opposite the desk from her. “I rely on you somewhat to tell me when I am wrong,” Edelgard confesses. “But as you know, I do not always react well to being told as such.”

“Do any of us?” Ferdinand says with a short laugh. “Look at how long it took me to recognise I was not truly a rival to you!” She smiles at that, letting out a small huff of amusement and shaking her head.

“Indeed. But you were right to say yesterday I was only thinking for the good of the Empire,” she says. “And that I should have taken the time to think of the individual as well.” She lays her hands out on the desk surface, palms splayed and presses into them, seemingly involuntarily and as if uncomfortable.

“In no small part, that is your job,” Ferdinand starts.

“Yes, but I cannot afford to place the Empire above person as a rule,” she interrupts him, lifting her hands off the desk in a gesture that tells him to _stop talking please_. “I know this would make me a tyrant.”

“That is more than the previous Emperors have been aware of, I am sure,” he interjects, ignoring the look she gives him for it. “Edelgard—”

“Ferdinand, will you stop interrupting me when I am trying to tell you you were right!” Edelgard cries, raising her hands in exasperation.

“But I am trying to tell you the same!”

Edelgard pauses and then, almost as if she is unable to stop herself, laughs. “Look at us, each arguing the other is right.” She pauses. “We work well together, you know that? Even Hubert is not willing to pull me up when I am wrong, but I can trust you to. Like I said, I very much rely on you to. Perhaps overly so at times.”

“You know I do not mind—” Ferdinand starts, but Edelgard interrupts.

“I know you do not,” she tells him. “And I could not govern Fódlan without you. But what I mean to say is that I cannot be passing off all of the burden of disagreeing onto you. I do not want to wear you down like that.”

“Are you relieving me of my duties?” Ferdinand asks, a sudden worry hitting him.

“No, no,” Edelgard reassures him. “I just— I was thinking last night, about what you said, is all. And how much I put on you.”

“You are not about to have Hubert disagree with you, are you?” The horror of the thought must show on his face because Edelgard lets out a short laugh.

“No,” she says. “I am not. I fear it may result in an aneurysm should I even suggest such a thing. And that would be… most regrettable.”

“To say the least!”

“I was thinking of Dorothea actually,” she confesses. There is something in the way she says Dorothea’s name, a little pause beforehand, as if steeling herself to form it, that clues Ferdinand in.

“Ah,” he says. “Dorothea.” The way he says her name is loaded and Edelgard looks up sharply for it. Seeing the smirk that curves Ferdinand’s lips, she visibly relaxes.

“You ought not mock me,” she tells him. “After all, you do not have a leg to stand on. I have seen how you and Hubert act.”

“That is a low blow!” Ferdinand cries, but mostly in jest. “But you know, you do not need to come up with spurious reasons for spending time with Dorothea. I know she wishes to see you more.” That is an understatement judging by the number of times Dorothea has barged into Ferdinand’s rooms to lament that Edelgard is too busy for her.

“She does?” Edelgard blurts, as though this news is all she has been wanting to hear. Then, a moment later, “But it is no matter. I am the Emperor, I cannot just— just…” She trails off.

“One would think that, as Emperor, you can decide what you can and cannot do, and to hell with the rest of them,” Ferdinand offers mildly. “I know, I know, you will say that is what got us into everything in the first place. But, Edelgard,” — and he leans forward now, reaches out to rest two fingers on the back of Edelgard’s hand — “you are allowed to do things which would make you happy.” She turns her hand so her palm is facing upwards and squeezes his fingers.

“You know the same applies to you,” she says softly.

“Oh,” he says, affecting something like carelessness, even as his heart starts to pound in his ears. “I do plenty of things that make me happy. For example, I will be conducting my own investigation into Ansel’s death.” Edelgard definitely notices his deflection — he can see it in her gaze — but she lets it go, instead sitting back in her chair a smile quirking her lips.

“That is what makes you happy?” she asks, a little sceptically it must be said.

“Okay, so not _happy_ happy,” Ferdinand dissembles, waving his hands around a bit. “But if I can do my part to discover who did this to him, I shall be… content.”

“Right.” The scepticism bleeds starkly into her voice. “And now, I believe we both have work we ought to be doing,” she says, words harsh but her tone soft. Ferdinand nods and stands up.

“Oh, and, Ferdinand,” she continues as he reaches for the door handle, “do not think I did not notice you never answered any of my questions regarding Hubert.” He turns back to face her and spots the smile curling the corners of her lips.

“Well,” he says wryly. “It was worth a try.”

*

Stage one of Ferdinand’s investigation involves sitting down and making a list. Specifically, a list of everyone Ansel worked with and every place he might have been on the day he died. It is not a long list. Mainly, it consists of those working in Ferdinand’s offices and those in the Ministry of the Imperial Household with whom he liaised. As for places, well, there he hits a stumbling block. Ansel must have written his schedule down somewhere but, when he goes to search his desk, no such item turns up.

On the list, he notes: _schedule? check room_.

There are twelve names he has written down, and the first he starts with is Ansel’s secretary, a man named Garen, who has been working in the ministry in some capacity since Ferdinand first took up the role of Prime Minister. Garen is a small man, dark hair and eyes, but with such a forgettable face that Ferdinand almost walks right past him before recognising him.

He is working studiously, flipping back and forth between what seems to be a set of accounts and, when Ferdinand comes to sit down in front of him, he looks up with a startled flinch, twitching in a way that says his first instinct is to cover up the books. Ferdinand raises an eyebrow and watches Garen flush when he realises.

“Oh,” he says. “I am sorry, Prime Minister, I did not notice it was you.” He pauses, then adds apologetically, “It has been a… busy morning.”

“I can imagine,” Ferdinand says sympathetically. “And I am sure Hu— von Vestra has already come by to ask you about yesterday, but I just had a few more questions, if you would not mind answering.”

Garen shrugs. “He has not seen fit to ask me,” he says. “I don’t have much contact with the Ministry of the Interior, after all.” It both makes sense and seems an egregious oversight to Ferdinand. After all, Garen is among the less likely sources of a leak in the Ministry, being merely a secretary, but he is also one of the most likely to hear gossip in such a position.

“But you had plenty of contact with Ansel.” Ferdinand states it lightly, and is surprised when Garen cannot look him in the eye.

“No more so than any other secretary,” he says. “And Ansel did not always let me do so much, said he needed to keep himself busy.”

“Keep himself busy?” Garen shrugs.

“He did not tell me much more, but I got the impression he had… struggled since the war ended. His wife left him afterwards, you see.”

“When you say struggled…” Ferdinand starts.

“Oh, nothing that would have compromised his position here. He would not have gone borrowing trouble,” Garen says quickly. “No, he was far too professional for that. I think it was something like loneliness, maybe. The transition from that camaraderie, even with everything, to peacetime, you know.” Ferdinand nods idly.

“Yes, I could see that,” he says, looking down at his hands as though what he is about to say has little consequence. “Although I thought he had seemed happier more recently.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Garen stiffen. _Interesting,_ he thinks.

“Had he?” Garen tries to dissemble, eyes darting this way and that. “I cannot say I had noticed.”

“As you said, you did not have as much contact with him, yes,” Ferdinand says. “I remember.” He pauses, then, tone airy, asks, “Surely you cannot have missed the change, though? I myself found it quite marked.”

“It is possible… I may not have been paying so much attention…” Garen stumbles over his words. He stops, takes a breath. “What is it you’re trying to imply here?”

“I am not trying to imply anything,” Ferdinand says, shrugging. “I merely wished to ascertain the man’s state of mind in the past few days. And to establish where he was, and who saw him last.”

“It wasn’t me,” Garen says quickly — too quickly, Ferdinand thinks. “He left here earlier than usual the night before last, that is all I know.”

“Did he say why he was leaving early?”

“No, he did not. Like I said, he does not — did not — see fit to utilise me as a secretary so much as others may have.”

“Is there anyone in the ministry who may have known him better?” Ferdinand asks. “And who may know where he was on that night?”

“I do not know,” Garen says. Again, his eyes betray him.

“What about his schedule,” Ferdinand says. “Do you know where I might find that? I have checked Ansel’s desk, but to no avail.” It is a question designed to trick Garen, he will admit. The man is known for his organisation and, as secretary, he would have had access, if not control, over Ansel’s schedule. There is absolutely no way he would have let it out of his sight. If he does not have it himself, he must know where it is.

“I do not know,” Garen repeats. Suddenly, Ferdinand is very tired of this evasiveness. Garen knows something. Ferdinand _knows_ he knows something, and he is also quite sure Garen knows he knows Garen knows.

Oh, it is all getting confusing.

“Garen,” he says, with a sigh. “Do not try play us both for fools.”

A muscle clenches in Garen’s jaw and he shifts in his seat, looking around them, as if expecting someone to be listening in. Then he leans in close and hisses, “I don’t know anything about his death, alright?”

“I never suggested you did,” Ferdinand says slowly. He tilts forward too, bringing himself right into Garen’s space. “Except I believe you do — or you see that there is something suspicious — because you are lying to me right now. We both know it.”

Ferdinand has never had as scary a reputation as Hubert — quite the opposite in fact — but as he drops his voice and hardens his eyes, he sees Garen flinch back, ever so slightly. He tracks the man’s uneven swallow and gives a tight smile.

“I’m not lying,” Garen tells him, insistently. “I really do not know anything.”

“You have an idea of something, though.” At this, Garen hesitates.

“Yes,” he says eventually. “I had… I had full access to Ansel’s schedule, as his secretary. He told me to clear it, on the day he died. But he would not tell me why. And then he left early. So I went back to check it, yesterday morning, after everything, in case he had written something down, but it was gone.”

“Gone as in misplaced, or gone as in stolen?” Ferdinand asks, looking away now and frowning in thought.

“Stolen.” Garen says this with such certainty that Ferdinand glances back at him automatically. “I always put it away in the same place at the end of the day, locked in a drawer in his desk, and I looked everywhere else for it, just in case I had mislaid it, but I could not find it.”

“Huh,” is all Ferdinand offers. Garen looks at him, as if waiting for him to elaborate. “A locked drawer…”

“Yes,” Garen says. “Only I and Ansel have a copy of the key, and the drawer was locked when I opened it to check.”

“So you deduced it must have been stolen,” Ferdinand muses out loud.

“Was I wrong to?” Garen asks, bewildered.

“No, no,” Ferdinand waves away the query. “I was merely talking to myself. But I will check Ansel’s room, just to make sure that nothing has been missed.” He is fairly certain he does not imagine the paler tone that Garen’s face takes on, and notes to himself to keep a watch on the door to Ansel’s room. Just as a precaution. But for now, he will leave. There is nothing more he can get from Garen — willingly at least.

“Well,” he says as he rises from his chair. “I thank you for your help in this matter.” Belatedly, Garen stands too.

“That is it?” he asks, as if expecting Ferdinand to ask more questions. He could not be more clearly hiding something if he tried, Ferdinand laments. But there is no point in pushing him further right now. Let him believe that he has got away with the lie.

“That is all,” Ferdinand agrees. “You have been most helpful.” The confusion is stark on Garen’s face as he nods slowly.

And as Ferdinand leaves the office, he could swear he hears a sigh of relief.

*

Questioning the ministry staff reveals that, rather frustratingly, Ansel really did keep himself to himself, so Ferdinand is left with but two immediate strands to follow up on: the missing schedule and Ansel’s ex-wife.

But first, he visits Linhardt.

When they had first returned to Enbarr, victorious over the Church and the Kingdom of Faerghus, Linhardt had retreated to an empty windowless room on the ground floor of the palace and holed himself away for weeks on end. Only Caspar had been permitted entrance into what would become his laboratory, until Edelgard had finally decided enough was enough and all but physically dragged him out herself. Now, Linhardt’s rooms are in a corner on the second floor, overlooking the gardens.

Ferdinand does not know if this is where Edelgard will have ordered Ansel’s body taken, but it is a good enough place to start.

When he knocks on the door, he hears a yelp and the shattering of glass so, without waiting for a reply, he pushes in. Caspar is standing in the middle of the room, hand raised as if still holding the vial which is now in shards around his feet. Whatever was in there now appears to be giving off smoke on the floor, and Linhardt is nowhere to be seen.

“Caspar…” Ferdinand starts.

“It was an accident!” Caspar cries. “You startled me.” Ferdinand ignores this in favour of the substance which has significantly increased in smokiness in the past few moments.

“I think you might want to step away from there,” he says.

“Oh!” Caspar says, looking down. “I hadn’t even noticed.” He steps away from the spot and looks at Ferdinand with a grin. “So, why are you looking for Lin?”

“Do you not think it more important that we clear up that?” Ferdinand asks with a gesture towards the smoke.

“Oh, that?” Caspar shrugs. “It’ll stop in a moment or so. It’s happened before, it’s not dangerous.”

Ferdinand would rather remain in blissful ignorance on that point, so he sighs and asks, “Where is Linhardt, do you know?”

“He went out to get some Morfis plums.” Ferdinand opens his mouth to ask why, but opts against it.

“Do you know when he will return?” he says instead.

“I have returned now, as a matter of fact,” Linhardt says from the doorway, making both Ferdinand and Caspar start.

“Lin!” Caspar exclaims. “What a surprise!” Linhardt sighs as he comes into the room, surveying the damage Caspar as, accidentally, wrought.

“What did I tell you about those vials?” he asks, but he sounds less as though he minds as such and more as though the whole event fills him with fondness.

Ferdinand may never understand these two.

He clears his throat to get their attention. “I just came by to ask whether you had had a chance to examine the body,” he says. “From the other day,” he clarifies hastily at the look on Linhardt’s face.

“Oh, yes,” Linhardt says. “I have.” He places the bag he is carrying on a table, and digs around a stack of papers. “Here, I made some notes.”

What he hands Ferdinand is a pile about an inch thick, filled with his crabby handwriting. On both sides of every page. Ferdinand swallows.

“Might you… summarise it for me?” he asks hopefully. Linhardt sighs as if he had hoped to avoid doing just that.

“Alright,” he concedes. “The man died from blood loss after the wound to his throat, as you undoubtedly guessed, being not so foolish yourself.” (Ferdinand does not know whether this is an insult or a compliment. He takes it as the latter.) “Judging by the lack of blood around your rooms, he had been killed elsewhere and moved. But not so long before you found him, maybe only an hour or two.”

“And nothing more?”

“There was some dirt on his shoes — I did a composition analysis, in those notes — but it is a rather common type, I am afraid.” Ferdinand sighs.

“It may help narrow down his last movements at least,” he says. “He was not carrying anything, was he? A schedule maybe?” He asks this last part more in hope than expectation, but even so he is disappointed when Linhardt shakes his head.

“His pockets were entirely empty.”

“I see…” Ferdinand says. It is becoming more and more likely that this schedule is genuinely missing and that, if it truly is Ansel’s murderer who has taken it, it contains something of value in the investigation. “Thank you,” he says, abruptly realising he has been silent for a while. “This is most useful.”

Linhardt waves his thanks away and yawns. “If you will excuse me…” he starts and then trails off, eyes drifting shut.

“Uh, of course,” Ferdinand says, somewhat uselessly as it seems that Linhardt has fallen asleep. Caspar sighs fondly. “I will be going now,” Ferdinand continues, also uselessly since Caspar is hardly paying him attention, beyond an absentminded nod, as he props the sleeping Linhardt upright.

So, clutching the notes Linhardt has given him, Ferdinand leaves, down two flights of stairs, a back route through the servants’ passageways, and out of the palace through the kitchen gardens. He gets a few odd looks from passers-by — he is, after all, the Prime Minister, and not a common sight along these corridors — but he ignores them, and heads out into Enbarr proper.

It is nearing midday now and the streets are filled with hawkers and vendors, such that Ferdinand has to weave his way through them. The winter sun is low in the sky, hitting his eyes so that he has to raise a hand in order to see.

Someone crashes into him from behind, hard, and he stumbles into the group of people ahead of him, to cries of “hey!”, only barely keeping a grip on the papers he is holding. He thinks he might feel a little tug at them, as if someone is trying to take them from him.

When he rights himself, he glances back and sees no one.

“Watch where you’re going!” It is the man he has bumped into himself, a large and intimidating figure. But Ferdinand has stared down Hubert. This man has nothing on him.

“I do apologise,” he says smoothly. “I must simply have lost my footing.” The man seems about to argue, but then someone nudges him and whispers, perfectly audibly, “That’s the Prime Minister!”

The man’s face changes quite drastically, and Ferdinand is almost tempted to laugh as he stutters his way through an apology.

“It was my fault entirely,” he says and, as the man continues to stammer, he continues on his way.

His destination is the house of Ansel’s ex-wife, a small building just past the mercantile district of Enbarr. It is in one of the more expensive areas of the city and Ferdinand wonders just how she can afford it. Jobs at the ministry do not pay as much as he would like, after all.

The answer is clear to him the moment the door is opened. The woman stood there is dressed in the finest fabrics and colours only commonly available to the richest members of society (for all that Edelgard wished to shake up the social order and do away with Crests, she found it somewhat more difficult to do away with the associated hierarchy entirely). A scowl lines her features.

“Yes?” she asks sharply.

“Are you Lisbet von Vogel?” Her face does not soften. If anything, it grows harder.

“Who is asking?” she demands.

This is not how Ferdinand was hoping this would go.

“I am Ferdinand von Aegir,” he says, seeing the name hit and a different sort of expression cross the woman’s face. “I came to speak with Lisbet about her husband — ex-husband — Ansel von Vogel.”

“She is not in right now,” she says. “I am her wife, Mileta von Arnold.” She pauses. “Would you come in to wait? She will not be long.” She does not sound like she wishes to invite him in. More that, having been inexcusably rude to him, the Prime Minister, she now thinks she must remedy that.

But Ferdinand does not mind, if it means he can talk to Lisbet.

The house may be small, but it still reflects the riches of its inhabitants. Admittedly, Ferdinand has not been in many of the citizens’ houses, but what he sees in this one is on a par to what he used to see waking up every day in his family’s home. Lots of silver and gold, vast swathes of silk curtains and other such frivolities.

Lisbet von Arnold seems to have traded up.

“Please, sit,” Mileta says, leading Ferdinand into a morning room and gesturing to a seat. “I will bring you some tea.”

Ferdinand would protest — he does not plan to stay long, after all — but he gets the feeling that this would not endear him to her. And that seems the easiest way of getting to talk to Lisbet.

Thankfully, it does not take long for Lisbet to return, however. Mileta has hardly finished making the tea before he hears the door and the sound of voices. Lisbet is one, he assumes. The other… the other is a child.

He hopes fervently that this is not the first any of them are hearing of Ansel’s death, but from the excited chatter and the laughs as Lisbet greets Mileta, that hope is in vain. His hands grip convulsively at the cushions beneath him and he takes a breath to prepare himself.

“Oh,” Lisbet says, entering the room. “Prime Minister.” She is a short woman, with greying hair and sharp blue eyes.

“Ah, yes,” Ferdinand says, abruptly unable to find any words. A small child peers out from behind Lisbet’s legs, Ansel’s eyes round in a pale face framed by dark hair. Ferdinand swallows. “I am afraid I have some bad news,” he tells her. “You may want to sit down.”

“Johanna.” Lisbet turns to the child. “Be a dear, and go see if Mileta needs help in the kitchen. The child pulls a face, but the desire to leave Lisbet and Ferdinand be outweighs the desire not to help.

“It’s about my husband — ex-husband — isn’t it?” Lisbet asks with admirable calm. Her hands clench together in front of her.

“Yes,” Ferdinand says, relief that she has guessed at least some of the news warring with despair that she does not know all of it. “I am— I am afraid to have to tell you that he is dead.” Lisbet shudders and sits, abruptly, as if her legs have given way beneath her.

“Dead?” she whispers. “How?”

“We have reason to believe that he may have been murdered.” Ferdinand tries to break it to her gently, but there is nothing gentle about what she has to hear.

“By who?”

“That is what we need to ascertain. I came to ask you a few questions, if you are willing.”

“Yes, yes.” Lisbet seems to shake off her shock. “Of course, whatever I can do.”

“Do you know of anyone who may have had cause to hate your— Ansel?” Lisbet pauses. She appears to be thinking, perhaps wondering just how honest she should be.

“He wasn’t the easiest man to get along with,” she admits finally. “Not before the war, and not after it. Oh, he could be charming, but if he thought you a fool, you were in no doubt of it. So, to answer your question, I think it entirely possible that he might have made enemies. But not ones who would kill him.”

“How often did you see him, since your separation?”

“Once or twice a week, usually.” Lisbet shrugs. “We had an arrangement that Johanna would spend a couple of afternoons each week with him, and every second weekend. I didn’t want to pull her away from her father. The separation was hard enough on her.”

“Might Johanna know something?” It is a long shot, Ferdinand knows, and a lot to ask of the child. But if it gives him just the slightest hint of a clue, then he will take it.

“I doubt it,” Lisbet says, unwittingly shattering that hope. “He didn’t ever have her at the palace. He made sure that the afternoons were spent around the city, and he didn’t work on the weekends he had her.”

“I see,” Ferdinand murmurs. There does not seem to be anything more that he might discover here. Lisbet is clearly no longer close to Ansel. She was always unlikely to be able to help. “I think that is all I had to ask,” he tells her. “I do apologise for having to visit you with such bad news.” Lisbet gives him a small smile.

“I’m just glad someone saw fit to bring the news at all,” she admits. Ferdinand feels a pang at that, something like guilt spiking in his chest.

“If you think of anything else, will you send word to me?” he asks. “Even if you think it trivial.”

“Of course,” she nods. “I will let you know.”

*

Ferdinand finds himself deep in thought on the trek back to the palace. Where he goes from here is not immediately obvious. He has no real leads beyond a missing diary, which he only has Galen’s word has been stolen and not mislaid. He might ask Ansel’s colleagues what they knew of the man, but if he was as private as Galen implied, then he doubts that will bear fruit.

He has reached a bit of a crossroads. He can either continue blindly with his enquiries, uncertain what he may be blundering towards, or he can give up. Chalk this one up to Ansel merely getting in with the wrong crowd. Dust his hands of it.

But he has never truly known when to stop. Call it a character flaw if you will, his sheer bloodymindedness. Just because he does not know now what next to do, does not mean that he will not be struck by an epiphany later on.

Besides there is at least one more thing he can do before admitting that he is truly stuck and that is searching Ansel’s rooms.

Ansel had rooms in both the palace and a nearby boarding house, so Ferdinand stops in at the latter on his way back. The landlady there looks at him suspiciously, as though debating whether to believe his story, but he eventually charms her into opening up Ansel’s room.

Only, the room is unlocked.

“That’s unusual,” Ansel’s landlady admits. “He was always scrupulously careful about locking his door.”

 _Why?_ Ferdinand wonders, but the thought flies out of his head when they push open the door to reveal that Ansel’s room has been ransacked.

There has been no attempt to hide the fact; his sheets are torn, papers strewn everywhere. All the drawers of his desk appear to have been pulled out and tipped upside down. Clothes scatter the floor.

“Oh my,” his landlady gasps.

It could not be clearer that whoever did this was looking for something. The question is whether they found it.

“Close up the room,” Ferdinand instructs the woman. “I will need to look over everything, to make sure nothing has been left behind that might indicate who did this. I shall send someone to guard it.”

She nods, shakily, glad that someone else is taking charge.

“Did you hear anything strange up here over the past few days?” he asks.

“No,” she says. “No, nothing. If anything, it was oddly quiet. I just assumed that he was working late at the palace and decided to spend a few nights there.”

“Have you been out at all?”

“Once or twice, to buy groceries,” she tells him. “But never for longer than an hour.”

So, whoever it was that did this must have had Ansel’s key. And they must have done it while she was out, perhaps even watched the place and waited for her to leave.

It is suddenly imperative that he finds out whether the same has been done to Ansel’s palace rooms. Because if so, he may well be looking at a motive of robbery.

But something about that thought does not sit right with him. He could not explain it — call it a gut feeling — but the idea that Ansel was murdered simply for a theft does not feel like the explanation. It is as though he is missing something.

And then there is the fact that Ansel’s body was left right outside his door. There are too many questions here and he does not have the answers.

“I will send someone to guard this room,” he repeats. “Please, do not let anyone up before I have.” He hardly waits to see what response this elicits, instead turning and striding back down the stairs and towards the palace.

At the palace gates, he dispatches a guard on duty back to the boarding house. Then, taking the stairs two steps at a time, he makes his way to Ansel’s rooms, towards the back of the palace and the servants’ quarters. He does not recall why Ansel chose to room here — he, like the rest of Ferdinand’s ministry, had been offered rooms closer to the Prime Minister’s own wing, but he had passed them over in favour of these, smaller and more isolated, ones. Perhaps that is why he wanted them, he wanted that isolation. But it does not quite tally with Galen’s description of a man missing the camaraderie of the army.

Maybe Galen is wrong. Maybe Ferdinand is wrong. It is not as though he can ask the man any longer.

When he reaches for the door, only to find it ajar, he allows himself a wry smile. Another consequence of the rooms’ isolation is that absolutely no one is likely to have heard anything. Ferdinand seems, once again, to have hit a dead end.

He pushes open the door. As with the room at the boarding house, nothing here has been spared destruction, the only difference being that there is a lot less clutter here and a lot more space. Ansel obviously did not see fit to keep too many items here, instead preferring to sleep at the boarding house unless he had no choice.

Ferdinand crouches down to pick up some papers that have been flung across the floor. They are crumpled and torn, but he is able to make out minutes from a meeting that had been held a few months previously. It seems to have been one about the imminent arrival of an ambassador from Dagda, but such meetings have been so frequent recently that Ferdinand could not recall exactly which the notes refer to.

“Oh,” he hears a voice from the doorway. “I’m so sorry.” He looks up.

He does not recognise the man in the doorway, apart from to place him as one of the undersecretaries to an undersecretary in his ministry, or a messenger to them at least, something of that sort. He is tall, but seems to shrink in on himself, although his green eyes are sharp, darting this way and that about the room. His hair is tied back harshly, pulling at the edges of his face.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” he asks nervously, yet somehow at odds with the rest of him. “Only, I was sent to fetch something, but I can’t be in the right place.”

“Sent by whom?” Ferdinand asks.

“Ah,” the man laughs sheepishly. “I can’t remember their name, tall with blue eyes and grey hair? He’s in charge of the Dagdan ambassador’s sleeping arrangements.”

“Ricard,” Ferdinand offers.

“Yes, that’s it.” The man seems relieved, any nervousness he had shown seeping away on seeing that Ferdinand is not angered by his presence.

“I do not think you will be able to find anything you need in here,” Ferdinand tells him. “As you can see, we appear to have been subject to a robbery.”

“Oh,” he says. “I see. Is there no chance I might look? Only I fear Ricard may not be happy if I come back empty-handed.”

“I shall talk with him,” Ferdinand says, waving a hand. “Do not worry. If I might enquire after your name…”

“Leon,” the man tells him. “My name is Leon.”

*

He is deep in thought as he wanders back towards his own rooms, crossing the large courtyard at the centre of the palace. The place is filled with workmen, a foreman standing in the middle gesturing and shouting directions. Half of them seem to be working on the eastern facade, while the other half erect a large platform and canopy in preparation for the welcome ball to be hosted for the embassy from Dagda.

This, Ferdinand scarcely notices, too busy thinking as he makes his way skirting around the edges. The chatter and shouts of the workers barely register to him. Then, shaking himself out of his thoughts, he stops, momentarily to glance up and survey the scene. There is so much movement in front of him that Hubert’s stillness stands out like a sore thumb. He is standing only a few feet away, as if he had been overseeing the work, but now he is staring straight at Ferdinand, eyes locked to his.

Then a look of horror passes over his face. Idly, Ferdinand thinks it may be the most expressive he has ever seen Hubert.

“Hey!” Ferdinand hears a panicked yell. “Hey, watch out!”

He does not know what causes him to look upwards in that moment, but he does. Purple flashes out of the corner of his eye and the rock that had been hurtling down towards him shatters into a thousand pieces. He flinches, bringing up his cloak, to avoid the shards that scatter outwards.

Ferdinand cannot tell if the silence that follows is genuine, that everyone has abruptly stopped working and talking, or if it is a false one, that his brain will not register noise right now. He feels oddly calm, however.

“Are you alright?” Hubert demands, grabbing Ferdinand by the shoulders. “Are you alright?”

Well that resolves the question of the silence.

“Yes,” he says after a moment, realising that the longer he takes to respond, the more worried Hubert appears to be getting. “Yes, I am fine.”

Over Hubert’s shoulder, he spots the foreman hurrying over. “What happened?” he asks.

“I do not know,” Ferdinand tells him.

“Someone pushed the rock over the edge of the roof,” Hubert says. A frown crinkles his forehead. He is more concerned than Ferdinand might have expected.

“How do you know?” Ferdinand asks. “It may just have been an accident.”

“I doubt a rock that big would have been ‘accidentally’ placed on the edge of the roof,” Hubert says dryly. “And besides, I saw a shadow up there, just before it fell.”

The foreman flushes. “I hope you are not accusing one of my men,” he says sharply. Hubert opens his mouth and Ferdinand is sure he is about to make it a whole lot worse.

“Of course not,” he butts in hastily. “Merely suggesting that the culprit may have taken advantage of how busy it was to put their plan into action.” He pauses. “If there was a culprit, that is.”

“There was,” Hubert insists. Ferdinand narrows his eyes at him in a way he hopes says _shut up, we shall discuss this later_.

“Well,” Ferdinand continues. “There was no harm done in the end, so I am sure you can get back to your work with peace of mind.” He says it softly, but there is an undercurrent of an order and the foreman knows it. He swallows and nods once, before turning on his heel.

Ferdinand grabs Hubert’s elbow and pulls him away. “Are you _trying_ to anger him?” he hisses as he does.

“I know what I saw,” Hubert tells him, annoyed.

“What you _think_ you saw,” Ferdinand corrects him. “You have no proof, and we cannot have word going round of some rock-pushing assassin just as the Dagdans are due to arrive.” Hubert does not respond but, by the grumpy silence, Ferdinand knows he has got through to him.

“What have you found out so far about Ansel’s death,” Hubert asks, begrudgingly, after a moment’s silence. They have left the courtyard now, slowing as they come to an alcove that offers a bit of privacy. Ferdinand realises his hand is still on Hubert’s elbow and removes it abruptly.

“Oh,” he says, trying to make his movement seem less of a flinch and more something natural. “Not a lot. There is a missing diary to find, and some mysterious meetings with an unknown stranger, but not much else. His rooms have been broken into and ransacked, so robbery seems the most likely reason.”

“So, that is the case solved then.”

“No!” Ferdinand surprises himself at how vociferously he denies this. “For one, I have not even established _who_ did it, let alone if robbery was the true motive. It may have been used as a cover.”

“But, as you said, you have reached a dead end, apart from this missing schedule.” Hubert shrugs. “What more is there to find?”

“I do not know what your idea of justice is,” Ferdinand seethes, “but this is not mine. I will not rest until I see his killer found and punished.” Hubert tilts his head, as though seeing Ferdinand in a different light, or as though trying to bring him into focus.

“Alright,” he says eventually. “Then I will help.”

“I know you believe that I am wasting—” The words catch up with Ferdinand. “What?”

“I said, I will help.”

“But… why?”

“If you are right and the robbery is a cover, and if I am right and someone pushed that rock from the roof, then you may be in danger.”

“You cannot say they are linked! Even if someone was on that roof, there is no way of knowing it was the same someone who killed Ansel,” Ferdinand protests. “And besides, I can look after myself.”

“If someone is after you,” Hubert says solemnly, “it is a matter of national security and therefore it falls under my jurisdiction.”

Ferdinand has to concede this one. If Hubert is right — and he still believes it to be a very big if — then it is his job to investigate further.

“Fine,” he sighs. He rubs a hand across his forehead. “Fine. But you must accept that I am in charge of this investigation.”

“Into Ansel’s death, yes,” Hubert says. “But not into the threat on your life.” Ferdinand scoffs, but he has to concede once more.

“Sir?” A voice behind them pipes up, and that is when Ferdinand realises quite how closely he and Hubert are to one another. The alcove is small, yes, but not so small. He clears his throat and takes a step back.

“Yes?” he asks. There is a messenger waiting behind them, looking as though they have been waiting a while, in fact, unsure of how to interrupt. A small envelope is grasped in their hand.

“I was told to bring this to you,” they say, holding it out.

Ferdinand does not immediately recognise the writing on the front of the envelope. And then, suddenly, he does.

“That is Ansel’s writing,” he murmurs. Hubert looks at him sharply. Carefully, Ferdinand eases the seal away from the paper and opens it up.

There is only a note in there, three lines written in large, spidery, uneven handwriting. It looks so uneven, in fact, that Ferdinand is suddenly sure that whoever wrote it used their non-dominant hand to do so.

 _Your time is up,_ it says. _You have failed to pay what you owe and you know the price of forfeit._

“I think this makes it pretty clear that it was a personal vendetta,” Hubert says. “Only…”

“Only it does not make sense,” Ferdinand finishes for him quietly. “If it were a truly personal vendetta, why was he left outside of my room? Where was he actually murdered? And then does this mean we have two killers on the loose, if you are right to think someone was on that roof?”

“Who gave this note to you?” Hubert asks the messenger, who shrugs nervously.

“I don’t know,” they tell him. “I didn’t recognise him. He was wearing a cloak and he had his face covered.”

“And you did not think it suspicious?” Another shrug.

“You see a lot of strange things as a messenger,” they say. “This wouldn’t even rank in the top ten for me.”

“But you are certain it was a man who gave this to you.”

“As sure as I can be,” the messenger says. “Can I go now? I have a lot to get delivered.”

“Yes, go,” Hubert says, barely glancing at them. Once they are gone, he says, “You do not think this was a robbery.” It is a statement, but Ferdinand responds anyway.

“No,” he says. “But I think someone is trying very hard to make it look that way.”

“And trying equally hard to dissuade you from pursuing them,” Hubert murmurs, almost absently.

“You still think the two events are linked?” Ferdinand asks.

“I think I am even more sure of it now than I was,” Hubert confesses. “The closeness of the two… no, I cannot believe they are anything but associated.” He stops for a moment, as though assessing whether to say what he wants next. “Are you certain you wish to continue on this path? If you are endangered then—”

“I told you, I can handle myself,” Ferdinand interrupts. He is about to continue, but Hubert raises a hand.

“I know,” he says, and Ferdinand gets the distinct sensation that Hubert is using the same tone as he might with an unruly horse. “I do not doubt it. But if Edelgard found out that you were in such danger, just at the time where she wishes the country to appear most stable…”

“Are you threatening to tell her?” Ferdinand asks quietly, almost dangerously so.

“No,” Hubert says, equally quiet. “I am not. But if you wish to continue this investigation — if _we_ wish to — we must be discreet.”

“How do you suggest we go about that?” Ferdinand asks skeptically. “The moment we start asking questions, people will know. No doubt they already have some suspicions.” Hubert smiles as if the answer is the easiest thing in the world.

“Well, they will not go spreading those suspicions if we impress upon them the need for secrecy, it being an investigation by the Ministry of the Interior, after all.” Ferdinand feels a twin smile unfold across his own face in response.

“I like your thinking,” he murmurs and, if he had not been so sure that Hubert is physically incapable of blushing, he might have thought he did.

*

Of course, such good intentions mean very little when Ferdinand wakes the next morning to the news that a second body has been discovered, again removed from where the crime happened, and again placed within the Prime Minister’s wing.

Convincing Edelgard that he is in no danger appears to be an uphill battle.

“We cannot even tell if the two deaths are linked,” he argues, aware that, just yesterday, he was making the exact same argument to Hubert, albeit not about two murders. “We only have the slightest of suggestions that they may be. We must proceed under the assumption that they are not.”

“On the eve of the delegates’ arrival, the intimation that we may not have one, but _two_ , killers running around the palace, is not so soothing as you may think,” she says dryly. Ferdinand winces.

“I am of the opinion it is the same killer,” Hubert says. Ferdinand turns to direct a glare at him, but the man, infuriatingly, just shrugs. “To find two bodies, moved from their place of death and brought near to the Prime Minister, within days of one another? It would be unwise to call it a coincidence.”

“And yet, there is equally little evidence to suggest they are related,” Ferdinand snipes at him. Edelgard sighs and rubs at her temples.

“Regardless,” she says. “I do not want word of this getting out. I want to give the Dagdan retinue no reason to even think that our rule here is unstable. If you must investigate, I presume you will do so with discretion.”

“Of course,” Hubert murmurs. Ferdinand manages a nod, still frustrated that Hubert has told Edelgard his — frankly, baseless — suspicions.

“Linhardt has the body,” Edelgard tells them. “So please, with the utmost kindness, get out of my sight and get it sorted. I have too much else on my plate right now.”

As they are leaving, Ferdinand glances back to see Edelgard staring out of the window, a pensive look on her face.

“Shall we see what Linhardt has to tell us?” Hubert asks, causing Ferdinand to start.

“Oh!” he says. “Yes, yes.” Hubert gives him an odd look for that, but Ferdinand is used to those and lets it slide. They walk in silence for a moment, but it is the kind of silence that Ferdinand just wants to break.

“So,” he says eventually. “What do you know of this death already?”

“What makes you think I know anything?” Hubert asks and Ferdinand is fairly sure that he is teasing him, surer still when he spots the smirk curling the corner of Hubert’s mouth.

“Because I know you,” he tells him. “And also because you are Edelgard’s spymaster. Nothing happens around here without you knowing.”

“That is somewhat of an exaggeration,” Hubert murmurs. “But I cede your point.”

“Well?” Ferdinand asks, a little impatiently, when he does not immediately continue. Hubert sighs.

“Cause of death at first glance seems to be similar, if not the same, as the first,” he says. “I believe… I believe our victim this time is a captain of the guard. Of your personal guard.”

“Oh,” Ferdinand says, shocking into stopping. Hubert stops too, turning back to look at him. If Ferdinand did not know better, he might have thought there was concern in Hubert’s eyes. “Not Dominik?”

“Yes,” Hubert confirms. “Von Rosen.” Ferdinand is surprised to find a lump forming in his throat at this news. Dominik von Rosen had been one of the first members of the von Aegir retinue to join Ferdinand following Edelgard’s bid for power. He had been a middle-aged man, a career soldier, seemingly gruff and cold, but always willing to sit down with Ferdinand and talk.

“I suppose you are trying to think how this ties in with yesterday’s accident,” Ferdinand says, clearing his throat and trying to deflect.

“I think it pretty solidly confirms someone has it out for you, yes,” Hubert tells him. “You cannot tell me it is not.”

“Until you have proof of it, actual physical proof,” Ferdinand says, glad to take this argument for a distraction, “I will not act on that assumption.” Hubert lets out an irritated sigh.

“You are singularly frustrating,” he says, voice almost a growl. Ferdinand’s heart thumps arrhythmically.

“The feeling is mutual,” he says, trying to keep his voice level, but he is almost certain that Hubert can hear the hitch of his breath. Hubert’s eyes flash and he looks as though he is about to take a step forward. Part of Ferdinand wants it. Part of him fears it.

“The body,” he blurts out. “We need to examine the body.” The tension dissipates so rapidly, Ferdinand is almost dizzy with it.

“Yes,” Hubert agrees, face shuttering. “Yes, we do.” His voice does not sound any different, would be indistinguishable from his usual tone for any disinterested listener, but Ferdinand is not that. Ferdinand has spent hours listening to Hubert’s voice, for better or for worse, and it is as familiar to him as his own. Which is why, in that moment, he wishes nothing more than to go back, to unsay those words, and let Hubert take that step.

But, for all the magic in the world, no one has yet discovered how to rewind time, so all he can do is trail after Hubert as he turns and strides away.

*

Linhardt is, somewhat surprisingly, in his laboratory, Caspar nowhere to be seen. “Ah,” he says, as they enter, “you are just in time. I am writing up my last notes.”

“That was quick,” Ferdinand remarks.

“There was not much to it,” Linhardt tells him. “Death occurred in much the same manner as your first victim, with the caveat that, this time, there are marks around his wrists that suggest he was restrained, perhaps for some while, before being stabbed.”

“Signs of torture?” Hubert asks, because Ferdinand cannot.

“No,” Linhardt says. “He may have been drugged, though, since I would imagine it would be difficult to keep a man this size restrained only by ropes at the wrist. I would need to run further tests on his blood. And there was some mud on his boots, containing bits of shell.”

“Shell?” Ferdinand asks, confused. “Where on earth might that have come from?”

“The gardens, perhaps,” Hubert murmurs. “The shells may be a part of whatever soil we get shipped in for the beds.”

“What would Dominik have been doing in the gardens?” Ferdinand questions. “It is some way off his usual route.”

“You said Ansel was going to meet someone, the night that he died,” Hubert says. “It would not be such a leap of logic to assume that that someone was the murderer, and that a similar method was utilised to get von Rosen in a secluded area.”

“Perhaps,” Ferdinand allows. “But it is a leap nonetheless.”

“It is called deductive reasoning—” Hubert starts, eyes glinting with something. Ferdinand feels the thrill of an argument rise through him.

“Might you keep your flirting for outside my laboratory?” Linhardt interrupts. “I do have quite a few experiments I need to run today, if you please.” Hubert looks as though he is about to choke on something. Ferdinand, feeling the tips of his ears heat, grasps his sleeve and pulls him towards the door.

“Our apologies, Linhardt,” he says. “We shall be out of your hair at once.”

In the corridor, having closed the door behind them, Ferdinand turns to Hubert. “So,” he says. “The gardens?”

“Yes,” Hubert says, having recovered his voice, albeit hoarsely, in their flight from the room. “Indeed.” He glances down and Ferdinand realises that he still has hold of Hubert’s sleeve.

Slowly, he releases it from his grip, watching as Hubert swallows convulsively.

“Let us go,” Ferdinand whispers, but neither of them move. They are so close as to be touching, but for the fact that they are not. Ferdinand can feel the heat of Hubert’s body, the shudder of his breath. His own breath is just as uneven.

There is a bang from the room they have just left, shaking them both out of whatever reverie they have found themselves in. “We should be going,” Ferdinand says, smiling a little unsteadily. “We do not wish to become casualties of Linhardt’s latest experiment, do we?”

“No,” Hubert says quietly, so quietly that Ferdinand finds himself tipping towards him to hear. “We do not.” He raises a hand and gently brushes Ferdinand’s hair behind his ear, almost as though he cannot help himself. Ferdinand’s breath catches.

And then Hubert spins away, hands stiffly by his sides, calling as he does, “Come along!” Ferdinand feels unmoored, unanchored, as if, while swimming in the sea, he has suddenly found himself unable to touch the seabed. It is a feeling he does not know the provenance of, an experience he is not at all used to.

At the end of the corridor, Hubert turns to him. “Are you coming?” he asks, and Ferdinand has no choice but to nod, to shelve the feeling for another time.

There are more important mysteries to be solved.

*

Much like the courtyard, the gardens are a hive of activity, making it difficult, although not impossible, for Ferdinand and Hubert to conduct their investigation unobserved. “Hmm,” is all Hubert says, which Ferdinand takes to mean he is unimpressed. He loops an arm through Hubert’s elbow and shrugs away the look of surprise that crosses Hubert’s face.

“If they think we are just walking, they are much less likely to be curious,” he explains in a whisper.

“No,” Hubert agrees, “but they might be curious for other reasons.” Ferdinand feels himself flush and looks away for a second.

“Well,” he says, boldly, turning back. “Let them be.” Hubert’s eyes flash with something like pleasure, like that moment in the corridor that morning had never happened. A hot sensation ignites in the pit of Ferdinand’s stomach.

“Now where,” Hubert started, voice a low rumble, “might we find our shells?” His eyes are intent on Ferdinand, and Ferdinand has to force himself to focus on the matter at hand and not the way Hubert’s voice causes him to shiver.

“There are,” he starts, then has to clear his throat as his voice comes out hoarse. “There are some plants which grow best by the sea, I believe. In a particular soil.”

“But which plants?”

“Ah,” Ferdinand says with a soft laugh. “That is where I come undone.” A muscle in Hubert’s jaw tightens as though something about what Ferdinand has said has him swallowing his words.

 _Oh,_ Ferdinand thinks, swallowing now himself and watching as Hubert’s eyes flicker over him. There is a moment where he can see Hubert dragging himself back into the present and he is suddenly glad he is not the only one affected.

“Perhaps,” Hubert says eventually, tipping his head to a point over Ferdinand’s shoulder, “Dorothea might know.” Ferdinand turns to see Dorothea walking towards them, a big, knowing grin on her face.

He is never going to live this one down.

“Ferdie!” Dorothea cries. “And Hubie! What a surprise it is to see you here!” She glances down to where Ferdinand’s hand rests on Hubert’s arm and, impossibly, her grin widens.

“Dorothea,” Hubert nods, solemnly. “Just the person we wished to see.”

“Oh?” Ferdinand has never seen such an expression of glee on her face as in this moment.

“Yes,” he says, hurriedly. Better to get this over with. “Hubert and I were wondering whether Edelgard had any of those sea plants… what were they called?”

“Sea thrift?” Dorothea asks. “Those ones in the eastern corner that needed all that soil brought in as well?”

“What type of soil?” Perhaps Ferdinand sounds a little too curious now because Dorothea’s eyes narrow.

“The type of soil you find closer to the sea and not here,” she says slowly. “Higher salt content and sandier, I believe. What is this about?”

“Oh, nothing in particular,” Ferdinand tries to wave her questions away, but Dorothea is too adroit for that.

“Is it the” — she searches for the word — “matter you’re looking into for Edie?” she asks. Ferdinand hesitates.

“Yes,” Hubert interjects. “And we would ask your utmost discretion on it.” Dorothea raises a hand and makes a shooing motion, as if the very idea of her not being discreet is nonsense.

“Oh, Edie told me all about it last night,” she says.

“Last _night_?” Ferdinand asks, pouncing on a chance to change the subject, and it is his turn to be gleeful as the tips of Dorothea’s ears flush red.

“We were just _talking_ ,” Dorothea tells him.

“Were you now?”

“Yes,” Dorothea insists. “And like you have a leg to stand on!” she continues when Ferdinand smirks. Her eyes flick pointedly between him and Hubert. And with that, as Ferdinand splutters something that may or may not be a denial, she departs, throwing them a smile and a wave.

“Shall we go find our flowers, then?” Hubert asks, leaning in close to Ferdinand’s ear, so close that his lips almost brush Ferdinand’s skin. When Ferdinand turns, his lips are turned up in a half-smirk.

“You and Dorothea both delight in teasing me,” Ferdinand grumbles. Hubert’s eyes darken.

“If I were truly teasing you,” his voice rumbles, “you would know it.”

 _Oh,_ Hubert knows exactly what he is doing to Ferdinand right now. There is no way that he does not. And there is nothing more that Ferdinand would like in this moment than to drag Hubert away from prying eyes, to somewhere private, where maybe they could test out this… _thing_ burgeoning between them. He thinks Hubert might want that just as much.

Of course, that is the one thing he cannot right now do. Not with so many people watching, not with everything at stake as it is.

“The flowers,” he says, pulling back. “This, later… the flowers.” He is not making sense, even to himself, but Hubert seems to understand.

“Yes,” he says. “The flowers.”

*

The flowers in question are hidden away in the eastern corner of the gardens, tucked behind two high hedges. Ferdinand does not have to be as versed in the art of murder as Hubert to be able to tell this would make the perfect spot to commit a crime.

 _And a liaison,_ a voice in his head says, but he shoves that aside.

In the centre of the flowerbed, however, the flowers lie flat, seemingly crushed to the earth. Perhaps by a body.

Ferdinand crouches down and runs his fingers through the soil. “Would you say these look like the shells on the base of Dominik’s boots?” he murmurs, raising a handful of it up for Hubert to examine.

“Yes,” Hubert says, just as softly. “Yes, I would.”

“So,” Ferdinand rises to his feet. “We can say with some certainty that Dominik was, at the very least, attacked here. Linhardt believes that he was tied up for some time before being murdered, however, so we still do not know where exactly the crime took place.”

“It cannot have been easy to move him,” Hubert muses. “He would have been heavy, unconscious, so either our murderer had an accomplice or…”

“Or there must be some evidence of which direction he was moved in,” Ferdinand finishes off. “Excellent thinking.” It must be a trick of the light, but Hubert seems to blush, just slightly, at Ferdinand’s praise.

Sure enough, when they start looking, they find indents in the soft ground, as if made by the feet of a body being dragged along. Those indents lead them away from the flowerbed, into the shadows of the edges of the garden.

And then, abruptly, stop on reaching a paved path.

“Well,” Ferdinand sighs. “At least we got this far.”

“It narrows down our search quite considerably,” Hubert tells him. “After all, we can tell that it was not easy for our culprit to move the victim and there are few places from here that one might go, especially weighed down by an unconscious body, that are secluded enough to remain unnoticed.”

“You are right,” Ferdinand says. “And there must have been someone stationed along these corridors last night,” he continues. “This is close to where Edelgard plans to accommodate the Dagdan emissaries.”

“Well that brings another angle to it,” Hubert muses. “Perhaps our culprit is further from home than we thought.”

“You think the Dagdans may be behind this?” Ferdinand asks, voice dropping so that Hubert has to take a step closer to hear, not wanting to be overheard.

“We can hardly discount the possibility,” Hubert tells him. Ferdinand sighs and rubs at his forehead.

“No,” he admits. “We cannot. Though it may just as well be someone looking to sow discord ahead of the talks. The main delegation has not yet arrived, after all.”

“Both worrying prospects,” Hubert says. “What is our next move?”

Ferdinand looks up sharply at this, since Hubert rarely deigns to ask his opinion, and Hubert shrugs as if to say _it is your investigation._ It might seem callous to anyone else — his investigation, so his opportunity to blunder and botch his way towards failure — but Ferdinand sees it for what it is. Hubert’s _trust._

“Well,” he says, and swallows as his voice comes out more like a squeak. “I would say it is in our interests to find and question the guards who were on duty last night.” He pauses and thinks. “Perhaps even those from a few nights back. Dominik was never reported missing, but it is possible people assumed he had taken days off, and the attack happened earlier than we think.”

“You have good instincts,” Hubert says in a quiet, rumbling voice. Ferdinand can feel the tips of his ears burn hot red.

“I told you to keep it to your letters,” he says, aiming for calm and coming some way short, sounding breathless instead.

“Why would I,” Hubert murmurs, “when you look like this?” Ferdinand shudders.

“Do not start something you cannot yet finish,” he says hoarsely, watching Hubert’s eyes flash.

“Later, then.” His voice is so low that Ferdinand almost misses it. He gives a shaky nod and Hubert pulls back, visibly trying to restrain himself. “I suppose we had better find ourselves this killer. Without any more—” He pauses and his eyes, almost involuntarily, drag up and down Ferdinand’s body. He swallows. “—distractions.”

“Yes,” Ferdinand says. He mercilessly quashes the shiver that wants to run through him at the look in Hubert’s eyes. “And then…”

“And then,” Hubert repeats.

*

When they sit down that evening, to report their findings to Edelgard, Ferdinand makes certain to sit just a little further away from Hubert than he might normally, and watches as Hubert does the same. Edelgard raises an eyebrow, clearly taking note, but says nothing about it.

“What news do you have for me today?” she asks. She seems calm enough, but Ferdinand can see how everything weighs on her, in the slump of her shoulders and the tired creases of her eyes.

“We spoke with a guard who may have seen someone late last night coming back from the gardens with his friend, who was drunk,” Hubert starts. “The guard thought that this man all but had to prop his friend upright, he was so out of it.”

“And you think this was Dominik,” Edelgard says.

“Yes,” Ferdinand responds. “We found where we think the attack happened, in the eastern corner of the gardens. From there, we are reasonably certain the body was moved from there out towards where this guard was patrolling.”

“Which was…” Ferdinand glances briefly at Hubert, but Hubert’s face is blank.

“The eastern wing guest chambers,” he says, quickly, as if that will change the outcome of his news. Edelgard closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing.

“Just what I need,” she murmurs. “So what are you thinking? Dagda is behind it?”

“That is… a possibility,” Ferdinand allows. “But they seem as keen for these talks as we are. Why would they jeopardise that?”

“A renegade faction, perhaps?” Edelgard suggests. “I got the impression that there was some opposition to the whole thing.”

“Or one on our side, looking to discredit the Dagdans,” Hubert suggests. “There is little evidence either way, thus far.”

“I think the best thing we can do now is to focus on finding who did this,” Ferdinand says. “Until we have more to go on, there is little benefit in speculating why.”

“Yes,” Edelgard sighs. “You are right.” And that seems to finish their meeting, Ferdinand thinks, but for the smirk that is creeping onto Edelgard’s face.

With a sinking feeling, Ferdinand can see very clearly where this is going.

“In the meantime, I hear you two have been flirting in the garden,” Edelgard says cheerfully. “A little bird told me you were quite absorbed by one another.”

“We were not _flirting,_ ” Ferdinand tries to insist, but the look on Edelgard’s face tells him there is no point trying to convince her otherwise.

“Hmm,” is all Hubert says, which Ferdinand thinks is singularly unhelpful.

“Would this little bird be called Dorothea, by any chance?” he asks. Edelgard sniffs.

“Maybe,” she allows. Ferdinand opens his mouth to say something, but she shoots him a glare. Her eyes flick over towards Hubert and Ferdinand knows that, if he starts to tease her, she will just do it right back, Hubert’s presence be damned.

With a huff, he slumps back in his chair, arms folded.

“I do not know what just happened,” Hubert says dryly, “but I am not sure I want to.”

“Probably for the best,” Edelgard agrees happily. Ferdinand frowns.

*

In the morning, Ferdinand finds Hubert in his office. “We need to discuss where we go from here,” Hubert tells him, barely looking up from the papers he is going through.

“Yes,” Ferdinand agrees, pulling out a chair across from Hubert and sitting down. “We do seem to have hit somewhat of a brick wall with our investigation.” He sighs and gives a rueful smile. “I have to admit I thought this would be quite a bit easier than it has been.”

“You were hardly to know you were approaching something of a conspiracy,” Hubert says. It is half consolation, half provocation and Ferdinand lets himself be provoked.

“For the last time, there is no way we can yet know if the two events _are_ linked,” he huffs.

“Well, there is only one way to know for certain,” Hubert points out, “and that is to continue investigating. What do we know so far?”

“We know that neither Ansel nor Dominik was killed where they were found, but we have a fair idea of where they — or Dominik at least — were attacked. Ansel’s diary is missing, but his secretary said he had been meeting with someone — was supposed to be meeting them that night, even.”

“And we know someone tried to kill you,” Hubert adds and, seeing Ferdinand’s face, hastily continues with, “which may or may not be related.”

“It is your job to see plots everywhere,” Ferdinand says, “but that does not mean this is one.”

“Neither does it mean it is not.”

“You are forgetting that Ansel’s rooms were both ransacked. There is more evidence that he was killed in a robbery than there is your plot.”

“And how do you factor Dominik’s death into it? Are you supposing that Dominik and Ansel were both robbed? By the same culprit?”

Ferdinand sighs. “Fine,” he says, hands raised in surrender. “There is just as much evidence for _a_ plot as there is a robbery, but I do not hold with your theory that _I_ am being targeted as part of it.” Before Hubert can say anything in response, he continues. “Did your investigation of that tower uncover anything that might suggest something more than a mere accident?”

From the frown on Hubert’s face, he can tell it has not so far. “It does not mean a thing,” Hubert insists. “It is entirely conceivable that whoever was up there covered their tracks. Or used magic to dislodge it.”

“Would you not have sensed that?” Ferdinand asks, curious. Hubert glances down at his desk.

“I may have been a little distracted,” he mumbles. Now it is Ferdinand’s turn to frown.

“By what?” he asks. Hubert looks up. “Oh,” Ferdinand says. “ _Oh._ ” He can feel the tips of his ears start to redden. He swallows.

“So,” he says, voice almost desperately high. “I had thought to search Dominik’s rooms today, if you wanted something to do. It seemed the logical next step. And there is his company to question. They might know something.”

“It is a good idea,” Hubert says and Ferdinand is sure he will never get past the thrum of pleasure that goes through him at Hubert’s compliments. “I will come with you to search,” Hubert continues, “but I feel you may be best served if I do not try to help your questioning.” He gives a wry smile. “I have been told I do not invite confidence.”

“Whoever said that was mistaken,” Ferdinand says, fierceness leaking into his tone. Hubert glances at him, startled by his vehemence it seems. “You are not so intimidating to me,” Ferdinand tells him.

“Yes, well, I do not _want_ to be,” Hubert says, “but to anyone else…” He trails off. “Anyway, you are likely to make better progress without me, and I have some last minute preparations to undertake before the Dagdans arrive.” He looks so unenthused by the prospect that Ferdinand has to smile.

“Well,” he says cheerfully. “I must not keep you from those.”

“No, please do,” Hubert interjects and Ferdinand laughs.

“Come,” he says. “Let us search.”

*

Dominik’s rooms, much like Ansel’s, appear to have been thoroughly searched. Papers and clothes are scattered across the small space.

“Does it seem to you,” Ferdinand muses, “a little convenient that these two men, who have no apparent link, are both murdered and their rooms ransacked? If we could link the two to each other, or both to some third party, I would be less inclined to think so. But as is…” He shrugs.

“So, you are electing to discard your robbery theory?” Hubert asks.

Ferdinand cuts his eyes to him. “Not wholesale,” he says. “But unless we uncover something else that points towards it, I would say it seems less likely.”

“Have you looked into the victims’ finances?” Hubert asks. “That may provide some clue.”

“I would if I could _find_ them,” Ferdinand says, throwing his hands in the air. “One thing this mess has done is obscure anything of use in Ansel’s personal effects, since I have to sift through all his paperwork to find anything, and I do not know what may be missing — whether anything is missing at all.”

“Perhaps that is its purpose,” Hubert notes. “To muddy the waters and to hide the true reason for their deaths.”

“I suppose the only thing to do is to conduct thorough searches of our own,” Ferdinand sighs. “Maybe we will succeed in turning up something the culprit missed.”

“Well,” Hubert says, crouching down to start picking up papers. “There is no time like the present.” With another sigh, Ferdinand crouches down beside him to help.

Dominik, it seems, had been a very meticulous man. Pages upon pages are filled with his notes, mainly observations on the quality of the guard, and improvements that might be made to its functioning. They are, Ferdinand has to admit, some of the most mindnumbingly dull reports he has ever had the misfortune to read, and he has read some truly boring works in his capacity as Prime Minister.

Say what you will about Dominik’s work ethic, his efficacy as captain of the guard, his friendliness — he was not the most fascinating of men. Which, Ferdinand thinks, makes his death all the more confusing.

“At least we can be reasonably certain that Dominik will have written everything down,” he remarks dryly, after he finished reading yet another detailed analysis of just why the guard was not working at optimal efficiency. “I do not believe I have ever seen quite so much paper.”

“Maybe we ought to be going about this differently,” Hubert says. He puts down the papers he is reading and fumbles behind him for the pile he has already read. “Here, place anything that seems to be those reports on this stack, then anything that is not a report on another stack. We can go through the reports in more detail later.”

“Oh, thank the Goddess you suggested that,” Ferdinand says, relieved. “I was certain I had just uncovered a cure for insomnia otherwise.” He stretches over, resting on one palm and his knees, to add the reports he has read through already to Hubert’s stack. As he sits back on his heels, he spots something poking out from under a sheaf of papers beneath Dominik’s desk.

“What is it?” Hubert asks, eyes following Ferdinand’s gaze.

“I do not know,” Ferdinand says. He leans forward and lifts the papers. Underneath lies a silver brooch, its pin bent and a familiar pattern engraved on its face. “Correct me if I am wrong,” Ferdinand murmurs, “but is this not the family crest of the Dagdan ambassador.” Hubert takes the brooch from him, tips of his fingers brushing across Ferdinand’s palm. He runs a thumb across the engraving, tracing the peaks and troughs of the floral design.

“Yes,” he says eventually. “I do believe it is.”

“Well, that complicates things,” Ferdinand sighs.

“I would call that an understatement.”

“It does not necessarily mean Dagda are involved,” Ferdinand offers. “It may be a coincidence that it was here. Perhaps Dominik had someone over.”

“Perhaps,” Hubert allows. “But we cannot neglect to consider the fact that what we thought was a good faith embassy, is in fact not.”

“No,” Ferdinand agrees. “That we cannot.” He sighs, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. “Do you wish to inform Edelgard or shall I?”

“I will,” Hubert says. “You need to talk with von Rosen’s company still and I will be seeing Edelgard later anyway.”

“This is getting more and more stressful by the second,” Ferdinand mutters, rubbing his face with his hand. Then, he takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says. “We shall finish going through these papers, then I shall take myself off to ask some questions.” He nods firmly, in the hopes that, if he pretends to have such conviction, it will result in him having actual conviction.

He turns back to the pile of Dominik’s papers and he could swear it has increased in size since he last looked. “On second thoughts, maybe we ought to shelve this for now. I can see it taking all day.”

“You go on,” Hubert says. “I am perfectly content with staying here and working through it.” Ferdinand sits back and looks assessingly at him. There is something Hubert is not telling him.

“What exactly is it you are so eager to put off?” he asks, a smirk twisting the corner of his lips. “Come now, I have never seen you so reluctant to fulfil whatever Edelgard has asked of you.” He watches Hubert grimace.

“Yes, well,” Hubert mutters. He is not looking at Ferdinand, instead focusing intently on the pages in his hands. “I have reason to be.”

Ferdinand waits a moment, then leans forward, coming to rest on his hands and knees, leaning in close to Hubert. He gently pulls the papers from Hubert’s grip. Hubert glances up at him, dark eyes suddenly very close. Ferdinand wonders what would happen if he just let himself tip a little further forwards.

“She wants me to take dancing lessons,” Hubert blurts and Ferdinand almost tips over onto the floor in shock.

“ _Dancing_ lessons?” he exclaims. He is pretty sure the look on Hubert’s face is intended to be a glare, but it seems more like a pout to Ferdinand.

“Yes, dancing lessons, now can we move on?” Hubert says huffily.

“No, no, wait,” Ferdinand says. He sits back on his heels, then reaches out and rests his fingertips on Hubert’s wrist. “What is this for?”

“The welcome ball, of course,” Hubert sniffs. “I happened to… err and mention that I had not ever been instructed how to dance and so…” He trails off with a shrug.

“Oh, this I have to see,” Ferdinand says, a smile spreading across his face uncontrollably.

“No,” Hubert says immediately, eyes widening in horror. “Absolutely not. I am banning you from attending.”

“Hubert…”

“No.”

He is implacable and Ferdinand knows just how hard it is to get Hubert to do anything he does not want to, so he has to admit defeat. He sighs. “At least save me a dance at the ball, then?” he asks, fully expecting to be shut down as swiftly as before.

“Alright,” Hubert says softly. He is not looking at Ferdinand and the tips of his ears are stained red. Ferdinand, for his part, is speechless.

“...Good,” he manages, after a long moment. His voice is hoarse and rather high-pitched and he clears his throat reflexively. “I look forward to it.”

The papers seem a rather welcome distraction thereafter.

*

Acting Captain Antonin Weiss is not a tall man. But he makes up for lack of height in the sheer breadth of him. Ferdinand feels dwarfed in his presence and it is entirely down to his broad shoulders. “How can I help you, Prime Minister?” Weiss asks, forcing Ferdinand’s attention away from those shoulders and instead to the bushy monstrosity that sits on his upper lip and _wiggles_ as he talks.

Ferdinand very carefully adjusts his gaze so that he is meeting Weiss’s eyes. “I came to ask a few questions,” he starts. “You see, we are investigating Dominik’s — Captain von Rosen’s — death. Quietly, mind. We do not wish to start a panic.” Weiss nods sharply but does not say anything. “I had hoped to talk with the men,” Ferdinand continues. “To see if they can help us piece together his whereabouts that evening.”

“Well,” Weiss says, sitting back in his chair. “I can shed a little light for you on that, Prime Minister. The Captain was with me for most of it.”

“And where was this?” Ferdinand asks. He watches Weiss stiffen, almost imperceptibly, then his jaw clenches.

Meeting Ferdinand’s gaze head on, he says, clearly, “In his quarters.”

“Ah,” Ferdinand responds. “I see.”

“He was not abusing his position,” Weiss blurts, almost involuntarily it seems, as though, now having made the initial confession, he cannot keep the rest from spilling out. “It was hardly… if anything, I pressured him into it.”

“Captain,” Ferdinand says softly. “I have no interest in anything that is not directly relevant to Dominik’s death. Now, if you are telling me that you had a hand in it, we would be having a different discussion. But, as is…” He trails off and lets Weiss fill in the blanks. The tension in Weiss’s shoulders bleeds away.

“No, sir,” he says quietly. “I am not. I saw him last around the start of the night watch. We, uh, that is… he and I…” He gestures around himself with both hands, vaguely, but Ferdinand has a fair idea of what he is referring to.

“Yes,” Ferdinand says dryly. “I get the picture.” Weiss flushes, but stolidly continues.

“I left him when we were finished. We did not have much of a… talking relationship. So I don’t know what he did, or where he went, afterwards.”

“Is there anyone he _might_ have talked to?” Ferdinand asks, more in hope than any sense of expectation.

“No, sir,” Weiss says, shaking his head to underline the point. “He tended just to write his thoughts down.”

“Don’t I know it,” Ferdinand mumbles and catches the suggestion of a smile tugging at the corner of Weiss’s mouth. He stands. “Well, thank you very much for your time, Captain.”

“I’m sorry I could not help more,” Weiss says, standing also. “If you would like to talk to the men, I’m sure I can make myself scarce so you might use this office.” For a moment, Ferdinand entertains the thought that Weiss is behind it all, that his willingness to be of use is to deflect suspicion from himself. Then he shakes the thought loose. Weiss is an entirely uncomplicated man and, unless Ferdinand has read him drastically wrong, his willingness to help is just that. Besides, he would hardly offer the fact that he was the last known person to see Dominik alive, if he had in fact killed him.

Hubert would say Ferdinand is being naive, too predisposed to believe the best of people, but Ferdinand cannot countenance that this man would kill someone he had, of his own accord, admitted to having a relationship with. Not when he went to such pains to absolve the dead captain of all responsibility for it.

“Yes,” Ferdinand says, belatedly realising that Weiss is waiting for an answer. “That would be most good of you.”

*

Of course, three hours later, as he questions the ninth guard, who is repeating broadly what the previous eight had had to say before, he wonders whether Hubert did not somehow get the more interesting task of the two. If he has to hear one more person explain in minute detail — a habit apparently not unique to Dominik — where and when they ate, where and when they played dice, where and when they went to sleep… Well, he does not know what he will do.

It is useful information though, and he cannot simply discard it, because now he knows that the men were quartered far from Dominik’s rooms, closer to the kitchen staff. And that one or two of those kitchen staff can vouch for the men’s whereabouts in the hours when Dominik was killed. And that all these things happened sufficiently far away from _where_ Dominik was killed that there is little to no use in expecting them to have seen or heard anything.

What Ferdinand really needs is the rota, to find out who exactly was patrolling those corridors on that night. It is time to take a chance now, to do something that Hubert would disapprove of.

 _What Hubert does not know will not hurt him,_ he thinks.

“So,” he says, leaning forward when the guard seated across from him stops in the recitation of his movements. “You were off-duty, correct?” The man nods sharply, once. “Do you know who was on-duty?” Ferdinand asks. “Specifically in the corridors around the eastern side of the gardens.”

“The Dagdans’ quarters?” the man asks, eyes widening in surprise. Ferdinand nods once, sharply.

“Yes,” he says, carefully. “This is highly sensitive information, you understand.” He rests his arms on the table and leans in further. Unconsciously, the man mirrors him. “It cannot be getting out that there may be Dagdan involvement.” The man nods, eyes like saucers and mouth dropping open. “I am trusting you with this because I need to know who might have seen anything, but if I so much as hear a whisper that you have told anyone…” He trails off and lets the guard imagine what he will. The man gulps visibly.

“Of course,” he mumbles. “I won’t say a word.”

“Good,” Ferdinand says, sitting back in his chair and letting a friendly smile seep onto his face. “Now, the rota.”

*

It takes Edelgard half an hour to find Ferdinand at the ball, although that says less about her restraint and more about the fact that her attention has thus far been completely monopolised by the Dagdan emissary.

“That man,” she mutters, snatching up a glass of wine from a passing waiter, “could bore the hindleg off a donkey.” She takes a long draft. “Please tell me you have some news.”

“Well,” Ferdinand starts, “the good news is that the guards on shift saw nothing out of the ordinary all night. The guard who said he maybe thought he saw something then decided he had not, in fact, and that it was clear the whole time. The bad news is…”

“That they saw nothing out of the ordinary,” Edelgard finishes. She sighs and Ferdinand watches her hand twitch towards her forehead, as though resisting the urge to rub at her temples. “So, where do we go from here?”

“I still have copious amounts of personal effects to sort my way through,” Ferdinand says. “I hope that might shed some light on the matter. Else, Hubert has a man searching to find a link between Ansel and Dominik. Maybe he can find something out.”

“I do hope so,” Edelgard sighs again. “This is becoming rather more troublesome than anticipated.” Something catches her eye over Ferdinand’s shoulder and the concerned expression on her face gives way to a smile. A worryingly gleeful smile, if Ferdinand is any judge. “Hubert!” Edelgard says, and Ferdinand turns automatically, like a flower orienting itself to the light he might be inclined to think, were he the sort of person to write poetry.

He has not been that sort of person for a while.

“Edelgard,” Hubert greets her, sketching out a shallow bow. “Ferdinand.” Looking at him, Ferdinand wonders if he is at all well. He seems nervous, clenching and unclenching his hands, which is more emotion than Ferdinand has ever known him to show (barring the anger he used to be able to elicit, back before they became this balancing act of friends-but-not-quite-more). He glances towards Edelgard, to see if she has noticed, only to find her attempting to communicate something to Hubert via only her eyebrows.

They are interrupted by Dorothea. “Edie,” she says, breathlessly. “There you are. You promised me a dance, remember?” She catches both of Edelgard’s hands in her own and Ferdinand sees the tips of Edelgard’s ears redden.

“I…” she starts.

“Oh, you can’t cry off!” Dorothea exclaims. “Edie, you promised!”

“I am sure Edelgard would love to dance,” Ferdinand inserts himself into the conversation, ignoring the sharp glare Edelgard shoots him. “Besides,” he continues, “it is Dorothea or the Dagdan ambassador.” He nods slightly towards the man who is working his way through the crowd to them. Edelgard’s eyes widen in panic.

“Dorothea,” she blurts. “Yes, let us dance!” And without further ado, she pulls Dorothea away towards the space left for dancing. Dorothea turns back and gives Ferdinand a cheerful wave.

“I suppose that leaves us with the Dagdan ambassador,” Ferdinand sighs, glancing around to see where the man is, while simultaneously trying not to meet his gaze. He might take it as some invitation to come over.

“It would not if we were also dancing,” Hubert states. Shocked, Ferdinand’s gaze cuts to him. Hubert seems a little paler than usual and unable to meet his eyes.

“Oh?” he says and his voice comes out hoarse. He clears his throat. “Are you— are you asking?” He can hear a clear note of hope in his tone and he wishes at once that Hubert both can and cannot hear it for himself. Hubert takes in a breath, appearing to steel himself.

“Yes,” he says firmly. “I am asking.” He reaches out a hand, palm upturned, and Ferdinand, not letting himself hesitate — for who knows the next time Hubert might acquiesce to a dance, sets his own hand in it. He can feel the warmth of Hubert’s skin through his glove, burning into his own.

Hubert leads him out onto the dancefloor.

Ferdinand knows people are looking at them — he can feel their gazes raking over him — but he cannot bring himself to care. _Look,_ he wants to say. _Look, he is dancing with_ me.

Perhaps that desire ought to scare him. Perhaps he ought not feel quite so possessive of Hubert. But he does. And, if the squeeze of his hand and the darkness of Hubert’s gaze are anything to go by, he is not the only one.

Hubert’s arm comes to rest around his waist and Ferdinand raises a hand to Hubert’s shoulder. He is so viscerally aware of every place where their bodies connect, heat seeping between them. His hand, Hubert’s shoulder, the small of his back. He almost misses the start of the music, causing Hubert to smirk as he fumbles the first step. Ferdinand squeezes his hand in retaliation.

They dance in silence for a while, Hubert’s eyes continuously flicking down to watch their feet, before Ferdinand decides to speak. “You know dancing is used as an opportunity to converse,” he starts.

“I cannot think why,” Hubert says. “There is too much to focus on to hold a proper conversation.”

“Ah,” Ferdinand says, a laugh in his voice. “That is where I have the advantage of you, I see.”

“You hold an advantage over me more often than you think,” Hubert murmurs, lifting his eyes to meet Ferdinand’s own. The heat in them would make Ferdinand’s steps stutter, if he had not been so mercilessly drilled as a child.

“Well,” he says. “In the interests of that continuing, why not let me lead?” Hubert huffs a laugh of his own.

“I only learned one half of the dance,” he admits, ruefully, glancing at Ferdinand from beneath his eyelashes, a small smile curling the corner of his lips. Ferdinand has never been more attracted to him than in this moment. He feels a flush spreading across the arch of his cheekbones and swallows against a dry throat.

“It is a good thing I learned the two, then,” he says finally. “I am versed enough to lead you from here.” If Ferdinand had not been standing so close, he probably would not have heard the sharp intake of Hubert’s breath at this. His eyes, locked onto Ferdinand’s own, spark with something, something hot and intent.

Ferdinand leads him into a spin and Hubert’s eyes darken even further. “You are good at this,” he remarks. He sounds ever so slightly breathless.

“Hours of practice,” Ferdinand says. “Until I thought my feet would fall off. My father was of the belief that you ought to be perfect or you ought not to try.”

Hubert is quiet for a moment. Then, “Do you miss your father?” he asks abruptly.

Ferdinand is startled into a bluntly honest response. “No,” he says. “Not for one minute. The Empire is better without him. _I_ am better without him.”

“Does your family hold the same view?” Hubert asks.

“I—” Ferdinand starts. Stops. He pulls them into another spin, to give himself time to formulate a response. “I have not heard from them in a while,” he says carefully. “They did not take too kindly to my siding with the person who ordered my father’s death. The last I heard, my mother had… died of a broken heart, shall we say. I was not invited to her funeral.”

“Is it possible that they so disliked it that they feel inclined to go up against us?” Hubert asks. He sounds cautious in a way that Ferdinand has not heard before. Usually, Hubert has no compunction against asking such a question as baldly as possible.

“I cannot see any of my sisters, doing so, nor their husbands,” Ferdinand reassures him. “None are particularly… active in their displeasure, shall we say. Besides, I do not believe my father ever had enough support behind him to warrant such defence.”

“No,” Hubert says. “On that I would agree.”

“That would be a first,” Ferdinand murmurs.

“Hardly,” Hubert says, voice a low rumble beneath the music that Ferdinand strains to hear. It reverberates in his chest and he shudders, knowing that Hubert sees him do so. Hubert’s eyes darken once again.

The dance is approaching its end now, the music crescendoing. With it, Ferdinand feels a sort of breathlessness, a tightness in his chest. He thinks Hubert might feel it too, if the way his hands tighten their grip is any indication. His eyes are intent on Ferdinand, who could not look away even if he tried. It takes all of his focus to keep his steps even, to lead Hubert into spin after spin.

Hubert pulls him in closer as they go, until their chests are all but touching, until they are so close Ferdinand could just lean in—

The music stops and they do with it.

It takes a long moment for Ferdinand to register anything outside of Hubert. Only Hubert exists for him right now, the weight of his hands on Ferdinand, the heat of his gaze. His chest heaves with exertion, but he scarcely feels it. Slowly, oh so slowly, the sounds of the ballroom start to filter back into his awareness.

He releases Hubert’s hand and takes a step back. His other hand drops off Hubert’s shoulder and, reluctantly it seems, Hubert’s slips away from his waist.

“Now I see why Hubert wanted to learn how to dance,” Edelgard’s amused voice cuts in and they both start.

“Don’t tease them so, Edie,” Dorothea says, her lips pursed in a _patently_ false mou, Ferdinand thinks. “Hubie must merely have asked the first person he saw.”

“That is not—” Hubert starts, before realising that he has just fallen straight into Dorothea’s trap. The grin that spreads across Dorothea’s face is almost leonine.

“Oh, is it not?” she purrs. “Do tell us more, Hubie.” Ferdinand finds himself entirely fascinated by the way Hubert’s cheeks flush a delicate pink.

“Now who is teasing?” Edelgard remands Dorothea lightly, clearly not meaning anything by it. Ferdinand has found himself the worst kind of friends, he thinks, being so inclined as they are to mockery.

“And how was your own dance?” he asks sweetly and has the satisfaction of the turnabout as Edelgard and Dorothea both suddenly become very interested in the people gathered nearby. Anything that is not each other.

“Oh,” Dorothea says, “I do believe I see Byleth over there. If you’ll excuse me, I must say hello.” Ferdinand opens his mouth to say no, he does not think Byleth _is_ over there, but Dorothea has darted off before he can.

“Is that the Dagdan ambassador?” Edelgard asks, just as swiftly, pointing over Ferdinand’s shoulder. Ferdinand and Hubert both turn to look and, when they turn back, Edelgard has made her escape.

“Huh,” Ferdinand comments. “One might almost think there is something going on they do not wish for us to know about.”

*

The next morning finds a yawning Ferdinand picking his way through Dominik’s seemingly indeterminably lengthy personal effects. He has quickly come to the conclusion that Dominik had a distinct tendency to use ten words where two would do, but it has not made reading those words any quicker. And it has not helped him find any cause for the man’s death. It may be early days, but he has a sinking feeling he is on a road to nowhere.

Hubert had managed to complete the job of sorting said effects the previous day, leaving Ferdinand the unenviable task of actually reading them. He had hoped Hubert might feel the need to come by and help but, given that he has not seen him at all the morning so far, he does not expect him to materialise now.

Of course, he could not really blame him. Dominik’s papers are doing a good job of sending him to sleep, although the late night cannot be helping.

The ball had not wound up until the sun had been starting to rise and the room had been lit with a golden glow. Ferdinand had been enticed into several more dances, but Hubert had not, seemingly content to stand to the side and watch. Ferdinand had felt his eyes on him the entire time and, more than once he was sure, put his partner off with his inattentiveness. In between dances, he had alternatively stood by Hubert and tried in vain to ignore his burning need to reach out and touch him, or mingled with the guests and tried in vain to ignore the feel of Hubert’s gaze on him.

 _Why_ had they agreed _not yet_ , especially when yet looks like it will never come. Ferdinand feels as though the very blood in his body is burning with desire, feels as though he might just explode before yet comes to pass. His one consolation is that Hubert looks to be in exactly the same situation.

He shakes himself out of his thoughts to focus back on the papers. Another yawn cracks his jaw as he turns yet another page of notes. When this one reveals nothing more than a detailed treatise on just how the palace kitchens can improve their pies (more meat and spices appears to be the conclusion), Ferdinand leans back in his chair and sighs. It is clear enough by now that Dominik has not written anything that may aid their investigation, so that leaves him one final course of action.

Searching both victims’ rooms again in the hopes that they might produce one final clue.

He wonders, as he levers himself out of the chair and sets off through the corridors, if he is merely flogging a dead horse at this point. But he also knows that if he does not exhaust every possible avenue of investigation, he will never feel able to rest.

Dominik’s room, cleared of all the papers now, seems a much less daunting search. He and Hubert had been over most of the place the previous day, so Ferdinand starts with places they might have inadvertently overlooked. He kneels down and peers under the bed, reaching a hand to brush the floor to double check. There is nothing.

He sits back on his haunches and looks around the room. Then, he gets up and raises the mattress. Nothing.

Checks of every high surface — shelves, the top of the wardrobe — reveal nothing as well. He is starting to despair when, feeling with his fingertips along the wall the bed backs onto, he comes across a ring.

It is a small gold ring, perhaps one meant for the little finger, and it is engraved in such a familiar manner that Ferdinand’s head almost spins with it. The von Aegir family crest and motto. _Of the sea, the land and the sky._ So few of them were made that it may even be the very ring his father had worn, before his arrest and subsequent death.

So what is it doing here, in Dominik’s room?

“Oh!” Startled, Ferdinand turns abruptly to the doorway, folding the ring into his hand. Stood there is a messenger — or someone who seems to be playing the role of messenger, with a folded note in one hand. Ferdinand recognises him, feels as though he has seen him recently, but he could not say where. He is a narrow-shouldered man, an inch or two taller than Ferdinand, and a face that strikes Ferdinand as calculating, if a little startled himself in this moment. Ferdinand wonders if he saw the ring.

“I’m sorry,” he says, breaking the shocked silence. “I was looking for the captain.”

“He is… not here,” Ferdinand replies carefully, mindful of the fact that they have not yet announced the facts of Dominik’s death, perhaps not even the death itself if he knows Edelgard at all.

“I came to deliver a message,” the man says, needlessly, waving the note a little. Again, Ferdinand feels that frisson of recognition.

“Who is the message from?” he asks. The man has the grace to look a little sheepish at the question.

“I don’t rightly know,” he says with a smile that seems aimed at inviting Ferdinand into his confidence. “I had this note shoved at me by a secretary and told to go find the captain.”

Ferdinand finds himself unimpressed by this attempted show of camaraderie, although he could barely say why. The man just strikes him as too smooth, too polished. “And what is your name?” he asks.

“Leon.” Another smile, slightly wonky now, as though wondering why he is being asked such questions. And now Ferdinand remembers him. He had interrupted him searching Ansel’s room earlier.

“Do you usually deliver messages, Leon?” Ferdinand asks.

“No,” Leon says. “I, uh, usually work as an undersecretary for Ilse. I run messages only sometimes.” That is why his face has been so familiar both times, Ferdinand realises. He works for one of Ferdinand’s own secretaries.

“Of course,” he says. “I do apologise.” He watches Leon relax slightly, but something about this encounter still does not ring true for Ferdinand. It feels like, back in the midst of the war, walking into battle — the tense silence broken only by the clink of soldiers’ armour — and not knowing what the outcome would be or whether there would be enemies waiting for you just beyond that ridge. That sort of creeping sensation wriggling its way across his shoulders, like knowing someone’s eyes are on you.

Perhaps, Ferdinand reflects, he has, himself, become a little paranoid in proximity to Hubert.

“You don’t happen to know where the captain is, do you, sir?” Leon asks, shifting from foot to foot in the doorway.

“Ah, no, I am afraid,” Ferdinand says, offering an apologetic smile. “I was notified that his rooms had been broken into but I have not seen him myself.” If Leon is at all curious why the Prime Minister, of all people, might be investigating the ransacking of a mere captain’s rooms, he does not show it.

“I had best be on my way, then,” Leon says, hesitating as though waiting for Ferdinand to give permission. Ferdinand gives a short nod. He bites at the inside of his cheek as Leon leaves, watching him as he walks away down the corridor. Just before he goes out of view, Ferdinand turns away. But, out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees Leon crumple the note in his hand into a ball.

*

He is so wrapped up in his thoughts, on the way to Ansel’s rooms, that he almost does not notice her. Standing in a shadowy corner, head buried in another’s chest, is a maid, sobbing. Ferdinand does not linger, not wanting to invade their privacy, but he cannot help but hear her friend as he does.

“He won’t have just disappeared without a word,” she murmurs. “He’ll be back, Ida, you’ll see.”

It could be nothing. It could just be a simple case of a relationship breaking down and a man without the guts to admit it to the maid’s face.

But the coincidence of it…

Hubert would remark that he is jumping to conclusions right now, that a coincidence may be just that — a coincidence. So Ferdinand walks by them, pretending for both their sakes that he does not see.

In Ansel’s rooms, Ferdinand works with the same methodicalness of his search of Dominik’s. He scours the floors, raises himself to examine even the highest shelf and, finally, lifts up the mattress.

And there, wedged between the slats of the bed frame, slightly warped from being there so long, as if someone did not want for it to be found, is the diary.

It is not a large diary — it is barely bigger than Ferdinand’s handspan — but it is bulging with what seem to be letters. He remembers Garen saying that Ansel had left early on the night he was killed. He remembers him also assuming that the diary had been stolen, when he had been unable to find it the next morning.

So, he thinks, either _Ansel_ moved the diary here, not wanting it found, for some reason or _Garen_ did. Because he is protecting someone.

Ferdinand opens the diary, flicking to the date of Ansel’s death. There, in small, neat letters, are the initials I. F. and, a line below, the number eight. It is nothing concrete, but it is something to go on, at least, and Ferdinand knows just the man to tell him more.

But, before he does that, he takes out the letters and carefully unfolds each one. _My love,_ they each begin, and thereafter take the form that might be expected of a love letter. At the end, those initials again. I. F.

“I think,” Ferdinand murmurs to himself, “this would explain Ansel’s good mood.” He folds the letters back up and makes his way out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him with a soft snick.

And then he heads towards the offices.

There is almost nobody working when he arrives — all sleeping off the excesses of the night before, he assumes — so he counts himself lucky that Garen seems not to be one of their number.

“He’s through there,” one of the other undersecretaries says with a brief nod in the right direction.

“Thank you,” Ferdinand says with a smile.

“He’s not in trouble, is he?” the undersecretary asks, warily. “Only, we’re a little understaffed right now and if he’s in trouble, I need to know who I should be waking up.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” Ferdinand lies cheerfully. “I just needed a chat.”

Of course, if the undersecretary could have seen Garen’s face when Ferdinand appeared in the doorway… well, they might have sent for someone to be woken up regardless.

“You have been lying to me, Garen,” Ferdinand says and is somewhat gratified by the look of guilty horror that steals across Garen’s face.

“I…” he starts. Then, spotting the diary in Ferdinand’s hands and realising that he has been found out, his shoulders slump and he looks down at the floor.

“What I cannot work out,” Ferdinand continues blithely, stepping further into the room and closing the door, “is why. You tell me that the diary was stolen, but I have now found it and all signs point to it being _you_ who took it.” The look on Garen’s face reminds him of a deer in the crossfire and that, more than anything, confirms that his guess is correct. Garen stole and hid the diary.

“I didn’t want her in trouble,” Garen mutters eventually.

“Who?”

“The woman Ansel was seeing,” Garen says, now looking up and meeting Ferdinand’s eyes with an expression that Ferdinand is almost certain he means to be defiant. It just seems a little petulant to him. “She didn’t deserve that trouble coming her way.”

“And do you have a name for this woman?” There is a moment where Ferdinand wonders if Garen might try to defy him, might refuse to give up a name even now. But then he sighs.

“Ida,” he says. “Ida Fechter. She works in the laundry.” I. F. Ida Fechter.

“Why did you not tell me so before?” Ferdinand asks, voice cold. “You knew who she was this entire time and kept it from me.”

“I told you, I didn’t want it touching her.”

“That was not your decision to make.”

“She wasn’t with him that night,” Garen protests. “She said…” He stops, appearing to realise that he has put his foot in it.

“Do you mean to say,” Ferdinand starts, tone low and dangerous, “that you have spoken to her since then?”

“I didn’t tell her what happened! I didn’t tell her he was dead!” Garen blurts out. He sees the hardness in Ferdinand’s face and thinks better of continuing, gaze fixating on his feet. Ferdinand lets him sit in the silence for a long moment.

“Do you love this Ida Fechter?” he asks abruptly. Garen startles, glancing up involuntarily, and Ferdinand can see that he has cut to the truth of it. “You do realise this gives you a strong motive for killing Ansel.”

Garen is speechless, mouth opening and closing as if unable to find the words he wants. “You cannot think… I didn’t kill him!”

“But you loved Ida.”

“Yes, but she was happy with him! I didn’t get it a bit, but she was happy and I only wanted her to be happy. I could let well alone.”

It is true, Ferdinand thinks to himself, that, given the chance, he did not tell her that Ansel was dead. Or so he claims, but Ferdinand is inclined to believe him. And besides, Ansel had no contact with Dominik, no reason for killing _him_.

“You had better hope Miss Fechter is able to back you up here,” he says. Garen swallows visibly. “I will be talking to her and I will be suspending you from your duties as of this moment. You will be lucky if I decide to do no more than that.” Garen nods shakily.

“Yes, sir,” he says hoarsely.

Satisfied that Garen has learned his lesson, Ferdinand turns on his heel. On the way through the office, he passes by the undersecretary who had told him where to find Garen. “You may want to call in that replacement,” he mentions idly. The undersecretary looks up, surprised, and shoots what seems to be a terrified look in the direction Ferdinand has come from.

“You didn’t… you didn’t _kill_ him, did you, sir?” they whisper.

“No,” Ferdinand reassures them. “Not yet.”

Which, in hindsight, is probably not nearly so as reassuring as he intended.

*

The laundry, unlike Ferdinand’s offices, are a hive of activity. As Ferdinand steps through the doorway, he is almost run over by a laundry maid pushing a trolley piled high with dirty tablecloths. “Sorry, sir!” she cries, barely looking his way.

Ferdinand opens his mouth to respond, but she has disappeared around a corner before he can say a word. He is looking around, wondering just where he might start in finding Ida, when he spots the two maids from earlier, one with eyes that are ever so slightly red and puffy from crying.

He weaves his way towards them, hoping that he is not about to make a fool of himself. “Ida?” he asks, when he is close enough. “Ida Fechter?”

She looks up and pales drastically, wobbling on her feet. Ferdinand reaches out a hand to steady her, but her friend is already there. “Yes?” Ida says, almost too quietly for Ferdinand to hear.

“Is there somewhere we might talk?” Ferdinand asks gently. He can hardly believe it possible, but she goes even paler. “Your friend is welcome to come too,” he continues. “You are not in trouble, I promise.”

“Helena?” Ida whispers. The shock of seeing Ferdinand stood before her seems to have robbed her of the ability to speak or stand.

“There’s a quiet corner just over there,” Helena says sharply to Ferdinand. He gets the feeling that she disapproves of his being here, although she is unlikely to say as such. She gives Ida a worried glance and bites at her lip. Ida nods, so Helena, supporting her friend, leads them away.

Stood in the corner, Ida seems to have gathered herself a bit, colour coming back into her cheeks and her hand gripping Helena’s less tightly.

She takes a deep breath, appearing to steady herself. “What is it?” she asks, lifting her gaze to meet Ferdinand’s. “Is it… is it about Ansel?” There is such hope in her eyes that Ferdinand hates himself for what he is about to do.

“It is,” he says. “I am sorry to say that he was found dead a few days ago. We have reason to believe that he was murdered.” There is no kinder way to say it. Ida’s face crumples and she collapses against Helena with a keening sob.

“I thought—” she chokes out. “I thought he was just gone. Garen told me he was just gone.” Ferdinand takes a moment to curse Garen to the very depths of whichever religion’s underworld he believes in. If the man had just told him and not tried to lie to Ida, they would not be here.

“Garen was…” he pauses. Despite everything, he does not believe Garen did this maliciously and he does not want to poison their friendship with this truth. “He was misinformed,” he settles on, eventually. He knows Helena catches the pause by the look she flicks his way. “We are keeping any information strictly under wraps.”

“Why?” Helena asks. Her voice is just at the edge of what might be adjudged politeness. Ferdinand can hardly blame her. “Why leave it this late?”

“There was some… difficulty in identifying Ida as Ansel’s partner,” Ferdinand admits. He sees Helena read into what he is not saying, that Garen is the reason for this difficulty. A muscle clenches in her jaw, but she does not say a word. It seems Ferdinand is not the only one with a visceral dislike of the man.

“I am afraid I must ask,” he starts, “when last you saw Ansel?”

“A week ago,” Ida says promptly, and _oh_ , Ferdinand thinks, she must have loved him so to answer so quickly. “He said…” — she breaks off to wipe her eyes — “he said he would have a surprise for me, the next time we saw each other, but then he never showed up.”

“And you were to meet again, when?” Ferdinand asks. When Ida names the day on which Garen too last saw Ansel, he nods.

“He was going to come by at nine,” she sniffles, “because he was meeting someone else earlier. And he never did.”

Ferdinand remembers the eight scrawled in below Ida’s initials in the diary and wonders whether that might be what she means. In which case, Ansel appears to have met with his killer quite willingly. Perhaps because it was someone he knew and trusted.

“And all you have heard since is what Garen has told you?” Ferdinand asks, just to be sure. Ida nods, weakly. “I am truly sorry to have had to bring you this news,” he says softly. “I wish it could have been avoided completely.”

“It’s good to know,” Ida whispers with a sad smile. “At least now, I’m not wondering what I did wrong.” Helena makes a sharp, angry noise in the back of her throat, as if she vigorously disagrees with this statement. It seems like an argument they have had before, if Ferdinand is any judge.

“I am doing my utmost to find who did this,” Ferdinand tells them both. “I will not let Ansel’s death go unavenged.” Ida sniffles again as she nods. Ferdinand is not sure either of them really believes him and, in all honesty, he is not sure how much he believes _himself_ anymore. But when he thanks them for their help, Helena, at least, is looking at him assessingly, as though she had an idea of him and it does not match up to the reality of him, and Ferdinand finds himself with a renewed sense of purpose.

*

Ferdinand returns to his office to find chaos. It looks as if one of Linhardt’s wind spells has swept through, overturning everything in its path, including the desk. Papers are scattered across the floor, cabinets tipped over, ink pots splashed over every surface — it is less a systematic search and more someone taking out their anger, someone cautioning him against something. And, slammed into the back of the chair, is a knife.

Definitely a warning, then.

“Fetch von Vestra,” Ferdinand says to one of his aides. He feels remarkably calm about all of this, despite the destruction, although he knows Hubert will not be nearly so. It is as if something has slotted into place in the investigation. This would not have happened if he had not been looking in the right place, of this he is sure.

“What is this?” _Speak of the devil and he shall appear,_ Ferdinand thinks wryly. He turns to greet Hubert who is standing stock still in the doorway. Something akin to anger flitters across his face.

“As you can see,” Ferdinand says, waving a hand lazily to encompass the room, “I am the victim of an attempted dissuasion.” Hubert’s eyes flick over to him.

“Oh, that I understood,” he says. His voice is dangerously low and he all but stalks into the office. Ferdinand’s aide, Maria, who had been hovering by the doorway, rapidly makes herself scarce. “What I do not understand, is why this makes you so happy.” His reaction is much as Ferdinand expected, but he is surprised not even Hubert can see what good there is from this.

“Because it means I am on the right track!” Ferdinand cries. “I _must_ be on the right track! This as much as confirms it.” Hubert glances around and Ferdinand can tell when he makes note of the knife in his chair.

“Or,” he says, stepping forward and pointing to it, “someone wants to kill you. This is the second attempt at bringing you to harm.”

“We still do not know—”

“The rock was pushed,” Hubert interrupts, giving him a grim smile and lifting up a sheet of paper. “I came to tell you I had my men look into it. There was clear evidence that someone had been on that roof, and that the rock had been pushed. You are a target.”

On this assessment, Ferdinand would agree. It is the only analysis of the evidence that now makes sense to him. But there still remains a further question.

“But _when_ did I become one?” he muses. Hubert’s brow furrows in confusion. “I mean,” Ferdinand continues, “am I a target because I am investigating, or was I always a target?”

“Does it matter?” Hubert sounds frustrated. He sounds as if he cannot believe this is what Ferdinand chooses to focus on.

“It is of the utmost importance in finding the killer,” Ferdinand says, earnestly, waving his hands around in excitement. “I am sure the two events are linked, but if only I could see how…” He trails off. Hubert seems more than frustrated now; he is quickly becoming furious.

“How can you treat this with such… such _disregard_ ?” His eyes flash and, for a moment, Ferdinand thinks he might lose control right before his eyes. “Your life is in danger, and all you care about is this _puzzle_.”

Ferdinand stills. It is reminiscent of the argument he had with Edelgard, to get her to even let him investigate. He wonders, suddenly, if Hubert has merely been humouring him all along. He had, after all, never wanted Ferdinand to do this in the first place.

“It is more than just a puzzle,” Ferdinand says quietly, dangerously. “It is my _people’s lives_ .” He can visibly see Hubert hold back a snarl at that. A sneer that would have said _your people? They are not_ your _people._

“And you would put yours on the line for them?” he asks instead, savagely, disbelievingly.

“Did I not spend an entire war doing so? Why would I not now?”

“What good would it do if you were to die?” Hubert snaps. “They would not thank you.”

“I said I would find who did this and I have not yet. I cannot just leave it now.” Ferdinand takes a step forward, into Hubert’s space, glaring up at him. “I will not break my promise to them.”

Hubert bares his teeth and Ferdinand wonders if this is it, if, in this moment, something between them might break irreparably. But Hubert does not say a word. He merely turns on his heel and storms out.

Ferdinand grits his teeth and swallows an exasperated shout. He spins on his heel and strides over to the desk, where he yanks the knife from its place in the centre. He holds it for a moment before dropping it to the surface. He rests both hands on the table and leans forward, his head falling. He lets out a frustrated breath.

How can Hubert not _see_? If he can work out who did this — a daunting task in itself, since there are many ways through which someone might approach his office unseen — he can work out who murdered those men. Maria creeps back into the room slowly.

“Has anyone been around here while I was gone?” he asks. “Anyone you sent this way?”

“No, sir,” she says. “A couple of people came to request meetings, or leave messages, but since you weren’t here, I sent them away.”

“Is there any way they might have accessed my office without passing by anyone?” Maria takes a moment to think, presumably mapping out the wing in her mind in much the same way as Ferdinand had. She comes to the same conclusion too.

“Plenty,” she responds. “You only have to come in through the servants’ corridors and no one will see.”

“Yes, that is what I thought,” Ferdinand says with a sigh. “Is it possible that someone heard something?”

“I can ask around,” Maria offers. “I’m not sure if they will have, but I can ask.”

“Do that, please,” Ferdinand says. “And leave a note on my desk if you find anyone who did.”

“Where will you be, sir?” she asks.

“I am going to see if anyone at the other end of those corridors saw anything.”

*

Ferdinand is not someone to shirk difficult tasks. He knows this about himself. Neither at Garreg Mach, nor during the war, was he one to not do something just because it was difficult. So now, as he does his utmost to avoid Hubert about the palace, he feels just the smallest bit guilty.

It is not that he feels he cannot face Hubert — although he would be lying to himself if he thought facing him would be _easy_ — but more that he does not wish to be faced with anyone’s questions, should they be forced to come into contact. What would he even say? _We had a rather large argument because neither of us could really communicate like adults and now it is just a matter of who is stubborn enough to hold out not talking for the longest_? That, he feels, would go down like a lead balloon.

At least, he supposes, he possesses the self-awareness to know what they are doing is not the way to go about things. He can grant himself a point for that. But in his heart of hearts, he knows that it is not just about avoiding questions. It is about the fact that — for all that he _knows_ they should talk, that they had got angry instead of talking and look where that had got them — he is still ever so slightly furious with Hubert. He does not want to face him because he does not want a repeat of their argument.

Of course, Hubert is doubtlessly avoiding Ferdinand too — probably more efficiently as well, Ferdinand has to admit, as he ducks into a side passage at the sound of footsteps approaching.

Alright, so it is not his finest hour, skulking about the palace like he is. He is able to admit that.

What he will not admit to, however, is the high-pitched squeaking sound that he makes when a hand grabs him by the arm and tugs him back into the main corridor. “What on earth are you doing _there_ , Ferdie?”

It is Dorothea.

“Oh,” he says, pulling his arm free and smoothing down his coat, trying to seem as though nothing out of the ordinary had been happening. “Dorothea.”

“Yes,” Dorothea says. “Me. Now, are you going to tell me what is going on?”

“I am sure I do not know what you mean,” Ferdinand tries, but Dorothea gives him such an unimpressed look that he can physically feel himself deflating under her gaze. “Going on with what?”

“Hubie, of course,” Dorothea says like it is obvious. “I assume that is why you have been moving about the palace as if the Goddess herself might come up behind you and tap you on the shoulder?”

Ferdinand opens his mouth, thinks about denying this, and then closes it again. After all, how can he deny it when Dorothea had just seen him do exactly that?

“We had an argument,” he says with a shrug that he hopes conveys a suitable level of nonchalance. Dorothea is not fooled.

“I knew that,” she says with a wave of her hand. “Hubie has been moping about Edelgard’s offices for the past day, it was not hard to work out why.” Ferdinand’s mind catches on the word ‘moping’ but he forces himself to ignore it. Hubert is probably just still annoyed that Ferdinand will not listen to him like everybody else.

“Yes, well,” he says. “He insisted that I must cease investigating because, according to him, I am as much in danger as anyone. I refused. And now here we are.” Dorothea rolls her eyes and mutters something that sounds a bit like _boys_ , in an exasperated tone.

“What are you going to do about it?” she asks. “I will not have you two ruining all my plans like this.”

“ _Your_ plans?” Ferdinand asks.

“Never you mind,” she tells him, waving his question away. “What is important is that you and Hubie fix this and fix it soon.”

“I fail to see what it matters to you,” Ferdinand tries. Dorothea is suitably unimpressed.

“It _matters_ , Ferdie, because I do not want to see two of my best friends upset,” she says. Ferdinand looks away, feeling a trickle of shame run through him.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “Right.”

“Ferdie,” Dorothea sighs, resting a hand on Ferdinand’s elbow. “Edie and I, we are just worried about you that is all. We thought you were...” She trails off, waving her other hand about as if to encompass all that Ferdinand and Hubert could have been.

“So did I,” Ferdinand admits quietly. “But then he as good as said he did not _respect_ me.”

Dorothea sighs again. She looks intently at Ferdinand for a long moment and then seems to come to a conclusion. “Okay, Ferdie, you cannot tell anyone you got this from me, alright?” she says. “Technically, you should probably get it from Hubie himself, but he does not seem so inclined to _say_ it right now and I really think you need to hear it.” Ferdinand, confused, can only nod. “You may consider Hubert to be overreacting right now, but he wants you safe, Ferdie.”

“I can keep myse—” Ferdinand starts, but Dorothea interrupts.

“I _know_ that, and so does Hubert, deep down, but Ferdinand? Logically, he might know it, but right now he cannot _be_ logical.” She pauses, perhaps seeing that Ferdinand is not entirely getting it. “Imagine if Hubert was about to die and you could only watch,” she says bluntly. “How would _you_ feel?”

Like he would burn the world down to get to him, Ferdinand wants to say. It would feel as though his entire being were being ripped apart. Surely Hubert does not feel the same though?

“Huh,” he says. He is almost sure he sees Dorothea roll her eyes and mouth ‘finally’, but the dim light of the corridor makes it hard to tell.

“So,” she says instead. “What are you doing to do?” It is a good question, and one that Ferdinand finds he does not have the answer to. Even if he can understand where Hubert is coming from, being in a similar position himself, he does not know how he could begin to rectify it.

“I shall have to think about it,” he tells Dorothea. She looks about to argue further, but settles instead for sighing and rolling her eyes.

“Well,” she says. “Don’t hurt yourself.” Before Ferdinand even has a chance to register the insult, she is leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek and moving away. “Good luck, Ferdie!” she cries as she leaves. “I have no doubt you will fix everything!”

*

On the morning four days after the ball, Antonin Weiss comes to visit Ferdinand in his office. He is nervous, twisting his hands together almost compulsively. He removes his helmet and holds it in front of himself, perhaps to keep from doing so.

“Did you remember something pertinent to the investigation?” Ferdinand asks, thinking that that must be the reason that Weiss is here. Weiss shakes his head.

“No, sir,” he says. He takes a breath, almost as though steeling himself. “It’s about one of my men, Hanno. He’s gone missing.” Ferdinand puts down his pen. He has a strange feeling of foreboding.

“Missing?” he asks. “How so?”

“He was supposed to be on the roster for the rounds up on the western ramparts last night,” Weiss explains. “Only, he didn’t show. I thought maybe he’d just forgotten — unlikely, mind, but not impossible. Except it turns out no one’s seen him since early yesterday morning.”

“Could it be he is elsewhere, perhaps sleeping off a night of excess?” Ferdinand asks. He does not disbelieve Weiss, but he must also make certain that every other explanation can first be disregarded.

“He doesn’t drink,” Weiss tells him. “That’s the first thing I checked. By all accounts, every night he comes back to barracks and goes straight to bed. Won’t even play cards, either. Holds himself to the highest standard.”

“Nowhere else he might have gone either?” Weiss indicates no.

“He never said much about where he came from, but I got the impression he’d split with his family to follow the emperor.”

“So he had no one here,” Ferdinand muses. “At least, not family. Any friends, partners?” Weiss shrugs.

“Not that anyone in the company knows of. Like I said, he kept himself to himself. Not sure he was _friendly_ with anyone, really.” Weiss pauses. “You don’t think… it’s not the same as the captain, is it?”

“I do not know,” Ferdinand says, honestly. “I cannot rule it out.” Weiss swallows visibly, worry creeping across his face. Ferdinand leans forward, resting his palms flat on the desk. “I can promise to do my utmost to find him,” he says quietly, earnestly. “I will turn over every brick of this palace if that is what it takes.”

He meets Weiss’s eyes as he says this and watches a faint hope flare in them. “Thank you, sir,” Weiss whispers fervently.

*

Of course, turning up every brick is easier said than done, Ferdinand has to admit. There is no sign of Hanno anywhere in the palace, and a search of the city below feels hardly feasible. He spends hours wandering the streets where palace soldiers are known to pass their free time in the hopes that someone has seen him. Each evening, he falls asleep at his desk, trying to get through paperwork he has not managed during the day.

And still there is more to search in the morning, more ground to cover, and no sign of Hanno. Ferdinand wishes that he could call in the guard, but he knows Edelgard wants this to remain private, to not worry people. He cannot help but wonder whether they have gone off on the wrong tack. If more people knew, perhaps more people would know to look, and perhaps Hanno would never have been taken.

It is hard not to also wonder what Hubert would do in this situation. Ferdinand knows he has ways of ferreting out information that Ferdinand himself could not access and, three days into the search and despairing, he thinks wildly of going to Hubert and asking for help.

Except he still remembers the sting of Hubert’s words, the implication that what Ferdinand was doing would be useless, that these people’s lives did not matter… Thinking about it has Ferdinand gritting his teeth and clenching his hands anew.

So, no asking Hubert.

On the fourth day, Ferdinand wakes to the sound of screaming.

He has, once again, gone to sleep at his desk, and it takes him a moment to orient himself. He scrambles for the dagger he keeps under his pillow before making his way into the corridor.

The screams, he discovers, are coming from a couple of maids who had been cleaning the corridor when they came across the body. But this body, unlike the previous two, is not simply lying on the floor. Instead, it has been strung up by the arms from one of the ceiling beams. Its neck is broken and three slashes mar its cheeks. Ferdinand is chillingly certain that, if he were to open its mouth, its tongue would have been removed.

It is a very specific death. A death meant for traitors to the old Adestrian Empire.

 _Well,_ Ferdinand thinks, a little hysterically, _there’s the motive._

By now, the screaming has roused others and he does his best to cut them off before they can see this new horror. He sends a man to wake Edelgard and Hubert, and another to drag Linhardt from his bed. And then he sets about cutting the body down.

Hubert and Edelgard arrive as he is gently laying the man on the ground. His body is stiff enough that Ferdinand cannot move his arms from their position, so the result is somewhat ignominious. The face, carved up as it may be, clearly belongs to Hanno.

“Traitor,” Edelgard murmurs, reading the slashes and the broken neck for what they are.

“I think,” Ferdinand says, but he has to clear his throat because his voice sounds so hoarse. “I think we are looking at someone who is disillusioned by our victory. Or perhaps someone who never supported it in the first place.”

“Someone Adestrian too,” she continues. “The punishment is not well known.”

“If I had—” Ferdinand starts, then cuts himself off, turning away and shoving a fist against his mouth, biting at the knuckle because it seems the most effective way to keep from shouting himself.

If he had done what? Found Hanno? Stopped the killer before they could even get to him? Nothing he has done up to now seems of use, all of a sudden, because, when push came to shove, he could not _stop_ anything. Hanno is dead and he is no closer to finding out who is behind it all.

“Ferdinand,” Edelgard says quietly. “This is not your fault.”

“You do not know that,” Ferdinand snaps. “I could have found him, I could have saved him, I could have—” He swallows back the lump in his throat.

“The only person to blame here is his killer,” Hubert says softly. It is as gentle as Hubert has been with him since their argument a few days previously. Ferdinand wonders, if he turned around, just how Hubert would be looking at him. If he would be looking at all.

He does not turn.

“Where is Linhardt?” he asks, desperately seeking a different subject to move onto.

“Here,” Linhardt says from behind him, jaw cracking with a yawn. “I had to extract myself from Caspar.” He kneels down next to the body.

For a long moment, no one says anything as Linhardt works. It might be the hour, or the lingering sense of guilt, but it seems none of them feels much inclined to speak.

Linhardt is the one to break the silence in the end. “On the face of it, I would say what killed him was this stab wound here” — he gestures to Hanno’s chest — “and these other wounds were delivered post-mortem.”

“Can you tell how long he has been dead?” Edelgard asks.

“Not so long,” Linhardt shrugs. “He was probably killed overnight.”

“So he was kept alive before that,” Ferdinand says grimly.

“Almost certainly,” Linhardt responds, oblivious to the feeling that roils through Ferdinand’s gut at the confirmation. He can feel Edelgard’s eyes on him and he tries to smooth his face of any hint of emotion.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” he asks. “Any clue as to where he was being held?”

“I can tell you that he was tied up,” Linhardt says, gesturing to Hanno’s bruised wrists. Ferdinand crouches down beside him to look. “He seems to have some dirt under his nails and some of them are broken, but I doubt that will tell you all that much.”

“Dirt?” Ferdinand asks. “So, he may have been held underground, perhaps? In a cellar?” Linhardt tilts his head as if to allow it.

“I will leave the speculating to you,” he says. “Merely by looking I could not tell you either way.”

“Right,” Ferdinand says, standing up and giving Hanno’s body one last glance. The slashes across his cheeks glare at him in recrimination. _I am so sorry, Hanno,_ he thinks. “If that is all for now, I have a job to be doing.” He does not let himself hesitate as he turns away from the body.

“Ferdinand,” Edelgard says, softly. But if he looks at her now, if he speaks at all, he will not be able to keep the tightness in his chest from overwhelming him.

So he does not. Instead, he walks away, down the corridor and out of the wing. He needs some air, some space to think, some… some… Oh, he does not know what. A breakthrough in this investigation maybe. A hint that he has not just been stumbling around in the dark, that he is not to blame for Hanno’s death.

There must be something that he is missing, that all three individuals have in common. It is not love — Ansel had Ida, Dominik and Hanno both seemed happy enough on their own. Neither does it appear to be jealousy, for similar reasons. He could imagine something linking Dominik and Hanno, since they were in the same company of guards, but he is at a loss as to how Ansel might tie into that.

He feels as though he has been going round in circles with it all. There is no clear motive to any of this and he is left stumbling in the dark. If the Dagdans are behind it, they are not using it to their advantage just yet, unless it is some rogue faction looking to disrupt the talks. But at the same time, there is no evidence in favour of that either. Yes, he found that brooch with a Dagdan crest, but that seems more incidental than a pattern.

Of course, it occurs to him that a pattern might mean a framing, but a single object may be something truer. But Hanno’s death changes that. Why would the Dagdans see Hanno as a traitor? How would they know an Adrestrian traitor’s death?

He comes to a halt in yet another corridor. He does not know how far he has come, or where he has ended up. But he has just had a thought.

A traitor’s death. A family which had disowned Hanno, for siding with Edelgard.

“Traitor,” he whispers to himself. “That is _it_.”

Because it could mean traitor to the Adestrian Empire, or it could mean a traitor of the kind that is closer to home. Perhaps so close to home that Ferdinand could not even see it.

There is one thing that these three men have in common. That Ferdinand shares in common too, if he is to take the attempts on his life as further evidence. Each and every one of them joined Edelgard’s cause from the old von Aegir household and the lands surrounding it.

And Ferdinand is fairly certain that, were his father still alive, that would be more than enough to earn the sobriquet _traitor_.

*

“And you are sure of this?” Edelgard asks, once Ferdinand has laid out his theory for her later that day.

“As sure as I can be,” he tells her. “I do not see another link between these three men, and I do not see another reason Hanno was given that particular punishment. He is the least likely of men to betray you.” Conversations with Hanno’s fellow guards had revealed an almost obsessive dedication to the cause, despite his apparent insistence on complete solitude. Privately, Ferdinand wonders if Hanno had not had something of an infatuation with Edelgard.

“Even so…” Edelgard is not convinced, Ferdinand can tell.

“Even if I am wrong, there is no harm in drawing up a list of people who may need to be on their guard,” he reasons.

“Are you assuming that whoever is behind this is within the palace?” Edelgard asks. “How do you know they are not outside of it?”

“I do not,” Ferdinand admits. “But think about it: if you were planning such an undertaking, would you not seek to infiltrate your enemy’s ranks? Not only does it provide you easier access to your victims, but then you can also keep abreast of any developments.”

Edelgard gives a hum of something that may or may not be an agreement. “What are Hubert’s views on this theory of yours?” she asks. Ferdinand stiffens and carefully leans back in his chair.

“I do not know,” he says, firmly. “I have not asked him.” A pause. “Anyway, it is not his investigation, what do I care what he thinks?” He says this hurriedly, a little bitterly if he is being brutally honest, and not entirely voluntarily. He presses his lips shut and refuses to meet Edelgard’s eye.

Childish, he knows.

“So that would be why I have regained my spymaster all of a sudden,” Edelgard muses. “I had been wondering. Dorothea mentioned she had spoken to you, but did not say about what.”

“I would have thought you would be glad for it.” Edelgard is quiet for a long moment and Ferdinand finds himself forced to look back at her. Her eyes are soft and her lips form a gentle moue of displeasure. She is not asking this as his emperor; she is asking as his friend.

“Not when it comes at this cost,” she says quietly. “What happened?” Ferdinand sighs, suddenly tired beyond all measure. He can almost feel the exhaustion seeping into his bones.

“Nothing,” he says, waving a hand, “an argument. It was stupid.”

“Something about willfully putting your life in danger, if Hubert is to be trusted,” Edelgard says wryly.

“If you know already, then why ask?” Edelgard raises her eyebrows, as if the answer must be obvious.

“Because I also know both you and Hubert and there must be more to it than that.”

“Hmm,” is all Ferdinand offers. He is not particularly inclined to talk about this, but he knows that Edelgard is perfectly willing to keep pushing.

“Is he right?” she asks softly. Ferdinand sighs again and shrugs.

“No,” he says eventually. “He exaggerates.”

“Not an accusation often levelled at my spymaster,” Edelgard notes dryly. “Or are we talking the overly cautious sort?”

“Take a guess.” Again, the bitterness leaks into his tone.

“He just wants to keep everyone safe, as I am sure Dorothea mentioned to you,” Edelgard says. “That is part of his job. Although I suspect with you it extends a little outside his remit.”

“I _am_ safe,” Ferdinand says, sitting up and leaning forward. “And even if I were not, I am fully qualified to _keep_ myself safe. Even if he cannot help himself… if he gets a little excessive in his desire to keep people safe. I cannot let someone get away with three murders, just because _I_ may also be in danger. So are hundreds of others!” He pauses and takes a breath, feeling a little giddy now that he has let it all out. “And besides, I am in no more danger now than I was during the war, and he was not nearly so… so much of a mother hen about it all.”

“I suspect it has more to do with the fact that danger in the war was unavoidable” — Edelgard raises her eyebrows — “do you not think?”

“Regardless,” Ferdinand says. “I cannot — and I will not — go back on my promise to bring this killer to justice.”

“You know,” Edelgard says, “you and Hubert would resolve this misunderstanding much more rapidly if you actually talked to one another about it instead of just staring mournfully at each other across the room.”

“I do not— I am not—” Ferdinand sputters. Edelgard leans forward, resting her forearms on her desk.

“Ferdinand,” she says gently. “You know _why_ he does not want you in danger? Tell me you do.”

“Because I am the Prime Minister,” Ferdinand says, with a certainty that decreases steadily in the silence that follows. He is not so self-regarding as to consider Hubert’s feelings on the subject would mirror his own. Not when there are Hubert’s feelings for Edelgard to consider. Edelgard, who is looking at him as if he has just said something immeasurably stupid. “Is that not it?” he asks.

“I…” Edelgard is speechless, it seems. “You cannot… You believe… Dorothea said that you had got it…” She trails off. He can feel her confused look reflecting on his own face.

“Are you… alright?” Ferdinand asks carefully.

“I am just trying to…” she waves her hands about, and Ferdinand takes this to mean that she is trying to sort something in her mind. He thinks. “You think he wants you…” It does not seem to require an answer, so Ferdinand does not give one. “Goddess,” Edelgard says quietly. “This is worse than I thought.”

“ _What_ is worse?” Ferdinand asks. “What are you talking about?”

“I really think you and Hubert need to talk this out,” Edelgard tells him. “It would do you both a world of good.”

“Is this you trying to meddle again?” he asks, suspiciously. “It feels very much like you are meddling.”

“Well, I would not _have_ to meddle if you two took a moment to _speak_ to each other,” Edelgard says, a little exasperated. “Besides, you are hardly innocent of it. You have meddled yourself, with Dorothea and I.”

Ferdinand latches onto this change of direction like a liferaft. “And how _is_ the lovely Dorothea?” The tips of Edelgard’s ears flush red, a faint pink brushes across her cheekbones, and Ferdinand feels the closest to happiness that he has in a long while.

“She is just fine,” Edelgard says with a sniff. “And you are derailing.”

“Am I not allowed to ask a friend how her relationship is going?” Ferdinand says, feigning insult. Edelgard gives him an evil look and they sit there, at an impasse.

“Okay, _fine_ .” Edelgard throws her hands up in the air. “And I will answer you, but _only_ if you answer me in turn.” She points at him. “Do we have a deal?” Ferdinand considers it for a long moment.

“Alright,” he accepts. “But I can choose not to answer anything I do not wish to.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Edelgard says, already shaking her head before he has even finished speaking. “I know what you are trying to do here. You get to veto two questions and only two questions. And I get that same power.” She sits back in her chair to watch him.

“Do you ever wonder,” Ferdinand says abruptly, “what it would be like to have a normal conversation? Where we are not competing or bartering something?”

Edelgard’s face softens. “Sometimes,” she allows. “But this is how we have always been, no?”

“Not to say it cannot change,” Ferdinand points out. “Although I feel if it did, we might drive Hubert to a premature grave.” Edelgard huffs out a laugh.

“So, will you tell me what happened between you two? Besides what I have eked out from the both of you so far.”

“That is about the sum of it,” Ferdinand admits. “I told you it was stupid.”

“You would not have argued over it before,” Edelgard says, then rethinks. “Well, you would have, but then you each would have spent the next few days complaining to everyone in earshot about the other.” It is Ferdinand’s turn to laugh now.

“That is not an inaccurate assessment, I will allow.”

“So?” Ferdinand sighs, rubbing at his temple.

“I suppose… it is different this time. Before, we did not like each other.” He takes a breath and forces something approximating a smile. “It… _hurts_ more now, because I value his opinion. Although if you tell him that, I will deny all knowledge.”

“He is worried,” Edelgard says. “Of course he does not think you are incapable. He of all people knows how capable you are. And I know Dorothea told you this much.”

“Then why—” Ferdinand starts, frustratedly, but cuts himself off. “He worries, you said. And I suppose… I suppose I did not exactly react well to those worries.”

“Well, I doubt that Hubert presented them in the most reasonable light,” Edelgard says wryly. “It is not one of his strengths.”

“That it is not,” Ferdinand agrees. There is a pause, silence filling the space between them. Then, “I will talk to him,” Ferdinand says softly. “If he will let me, I will explain it.”

“If he does not, I am perfectly happy to start meddling again,” Edelgard offers. “He is… indisposed at this moment, I believe. Something about gaps in his intelligence and needing to be out there himself to sort it. He departed this morning.” She pauses and adds, “Although I would not put it past him to have left to avoid confrontation.” Oddly, Ferdinand finds that he is not hurt by this. In fact, he is unexpectedly buoyed by it. Hubert, he knows, is not someone to evade when he expects a conclusion to be certain. That he has left now tells Ferdinand that he does not know what to anticipate.

“Oh, he will not escape it that easily,” he says cheerfully. “I can assure you of it.”

“This, I would pay to see,” Edelgard murmurs. “I cannot imagine he will make it simple for you.”

“I know how to handle Hubert,” Ferdinand says, a little pertly, he has to admit.

“Oh, you do?” Edelgard says, so suggestively that Ferdinand can feel his entire face flush bright red.

“I seem to recall you promised some answers of your own,” he says in a desperate attempt to change the topic. Edelgard raises her eyebrows but lets him.

“Ask away.”

“Are you happy?” She starts a bit at that, as if she was expecting a different question entirely. “That is all I really want to know,” Ferdinand confesses, when she does not immediately reply. “I wish for you and Dorothea to be happy.”

“I…” Edelgard pauses. “We are.” She says it almost wondrously, as though she had never actually anticipated that she could feel that way. Ferdinand never found out how those she had been tormented by died, but he cannot help but wish it was slowly and painfully.

“Good,” he says softly, and she smiles.

They sit in a companionable silence. If the Ferdinand of their school years could see them now, he might well expire from the shock of it. The Ferdinand of now, though, has been through fire with Edelgard, has forged the bond between them into something solid and unbreakable.

The door that leads to Edelgard’s adjoining chambers opens suddenly. “Edie,” Dorothea cries. “When are you coming to bed?”

Edelgard goes as red as Ferdinand had just moments earlier and Dorothea, belatedly, spots Ferdinand. “Ferdie!”

“And that, I think, is my cue to be gone,” Ferdinand says, amused. He stands and Edelgard mirrors him stiffly, quite clearly still embarrassed. Ferdinand deliberates for just a moment, before walking round the desk and pulling Edelgard into a hug. Startled, she brings her arms up to reciprocate. “I am delighted for you both,” Ferdinand whispers.

When he pulls back, there is a small smile creeping across Edelgard’s features.

*

The next morning, the first thing Ferdinand does is draw up a list of the men who chose Edelgard’s cause over Ludwig von Aegir. There are some fifty names on it, and he wonders just how the culprit thought they would get away with fifty murders. Then again, all signs point to an individual who likely does not care about such a thing. Either they are truly working alone or they no longer care about their own death.

Both explanations are possible and both worry Ferdinand. If there is a pro-Ludwig faction out there, and if Hubert had not known about it, then they have more to occupy themselves with than Dagdan delegations and a rogue killer.

But that is a matter for Hubert, he thinks. Right now, his priority is to question each and every one of the people who could be next.

Leaving his office, he almost turns to the right, in the direction he would go to reach Hubert’s rooms. With a bitter pang, he stops himself. Hubert is not here and, even if he was, the last vestiges of their argument are still hanging between them. Ferdinand is on his own here.

Of course, within a few hours — and fifteen interviews — he is ready to give up his pride just so that he does not have to question one more person. He can feel a headache building behind his right eye as the man, a guard, in front of him drones on.

“Thank you,” he says eventually, cutting him off. “I think that is all.” He could be wildly misjudging here, but this man does not seem to have the makings of a killer. He is a self-confessed coward, and highly willing to tell Ferdinand all about it.

With a sigh, Ferdinand gestures for the next person to be sent in. He rubs at his face and looks longingly out of the window. When he looks back, Leon is standing in the doorway.

“Ah, Leon,” Ferdinand says. Leon seems surprised — and a little put out — that Ferdinand remembers his name. “Come, sit.” Ferdinand gestures to the chair across the desk from his.

“I just have a few questions,” Ferdinand explains. He sees Leon’s eyes scanning the papers that cover his desk and gently pulls a blank page over the notes he has made. “I will not keep you long.”

Leon glances up and sketches a rough smile for him. “Ask away,” he says.

“You joined the palace staff quite recently, did you not?” Ferdinand asks. “After the war, if I am correct.” Leon does not blink.

“Yes,” he replies. “My mother, you see, she didn’t want me signing up since it would leave her alone.”

“I imagine that was not easy,” Ferdinand comments.

“No, it was not,” Leon admits. He tilts his head just slightly, as though assessing Ferdinand. It is somewhat disconcerting and makes Ferdinand wonder if Leon is questioning him just as much as he is Leon. But, he reminds himself, there is no particular reason to be as suspicious of Leon as he is, except for the feeling he has about him.

“You were never tempted to join either side?” Leon lets out an embarrassed huff and looks away.

“Can I admit to a bit of self-involved preservation here?” he asks. The smile on his face invites Ferdinand to join in on the joke. “Part of it was about waiting to see who would win. Don’t get me wrong, I was right behind you lot all the way. But if you’d failed…” He trails off and lets Ferdinand fill in the gaps. If they had failed, he would have been dead.

“Quite mercenary of you,” Ferdinand remarks. “Although, I can hardly blame the attitude.”

“If you’ll excuse my saying so, Ludwig von Aegir was a stain upon this earth,” Leon continues. “If I hadn’t had my mother to think of, I’d have been right there with you, fighting that scum.”

“Hmm…” is all Ferdinand offers. “Where is your mother now?”

“She died, not long after the war,” Leon says, in a tone that seems oddly cheerful. “That’s why I came to work in the palace, see?”

“I see,” Ferdinand murmurs. “Do you like it here?”

“Oh, yes,” Leon says with a wide smile. “Best job I ever had. We had it hard, me and mum, under Ludwig, you see. We used to be dealing every other day with soldiers coming round, demanding money we didn’t have.”

Leon is a confused jumble of wide-eyed honesty and clear slipperiness and Ferdinand does not know what to make of him. On the one hand, parts of his story track with so many others that Ferdinand has heard. On the other, he cannot shake the feeling that the man is lying through his teeth.

“I imagine you have heard by now that three people have died,” he starts. “I must ask — have you seen anything suspicious recently, anything that struck you as odd?”

Leon takes a moment to think, before shaking his head. “I can’t say that I have. But how would I know what to look for that was odd? There are so many people about that anything might seem normal or not.”

“No one lurking about where you do not expect, then.”

“Well, I don’t _know_ , is the thing,” Leon says, so earnestly that it _has_ to be false. There is no way a man can be this credulous. “If I knew what I might be looking out for, I might be able to say, but I don’t so I can’t.”

Ferdinand has to give him that point. “That is all I had to ask,” he says. “But if you do think of anything, please let me know.”

“Of course,” Leon says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help more.” Ferdinand nods vaguely, attention already turning to the next interview. Leon rises.

“Oh,” Ferdinand says, remembering suddenly. “Would you be able to tell me where you were at these times?” He gives the dates that each murder was committed, along with the approximate timings that Linhardt was able to discern. Leon thinks for a moment.

“I definitely had a shift running late messages for that first one,” he says. “I was down at the city gates much of the night. The second perhaps as well, but I’d have to check. As for the last, I’m afraid all I can offer is that I was fast asleep in bed.” He shrugs. “I hope that helps a bit.”

“Yes,” Ferdinand murmurs. “It does, thank you.” Leon nods and turns again to leave.

“Say,” he says, turning back just before he reaches the door, “was this last murder really strung up like a traitor?” He says it as though it has just occurred to him to ask. Once again, Ferdinand wonders what his game is.

“Where did you hear that?” he asks, forcing his face to remain impassive.

“Oh, one of the maids was gossiping.” Leon waves a hand airily, as if this is of no import. “You know how it is.”

It is a reasonable enough explanation, so Ferdinand accepts it at face value. The circumstances of the murder were hardly likely to remain a secret forever, he reasons. But even so…

“No,” he says. “Idle gossip, that is all. Some things get blown out of proportion.” He effects as careless a shrug as he can. He could swear Leon’s eyes narrow, but it may just be a trick of the light. Without another word, he slips away.

Ferdinand leans back in his chair and takes a moment to think. He is aware that Hubert would chide him for immediately considering Leon to be suspicious, that there is no evidence for his suspicions. Yet, at least. But something about the man rubs Ferdinand up the wrong way. He rubs at his temple and sighs. He cannot just decide that the man is a suspect, merely because he does not _like_ him. After all, he was able to provide solid alibis for at least two of the nights in question. He sighs again.

“Send in the next one,” he instructs with a wave of his hand.

Three hours later, he has made his way through all but five names. No one he has questioned, except Leon, stands out, but of the five remaining, three seem to have done much the same as Leon — sat out the war and waited to see which way the wind would blow.

The other two had fought for the Church before defecting.

All of them, to Ferdinand, appear to be the most likely suspects. Unless he wishes to believe someone has been turned against them.

The first of them is a man called Aleksander, a guard from the lands around Ferdinand’s old home who had initially sided against them. He is a large man, with a semi-permanent scowl on his face and dark hair cropped closely to his scalp.

He sits carefully down on the seat across from Ferdinand, tentative in a way that belies his build. “You had some questions for me, sir?” he asks.

“Yes,” Ferdinand says. “Just a few. No doubt you have heard by now of the death of Hanno Becker. We have reason to believe whoever killed him is targeting specifically those who lived around or worked for House Aegir.” Aleksander swallows.

“And they might come for anyone?” He seems to pale at the prospect of it, possibly imagining that his defection from the Church had come back to haunt him.

“If you worry that it is the remnants of the Church,” Ferdinand reassures him, “you need not. It appears more likely that these people are supporters of my father. Not,” he says with a twisting smile, “I realise, that that sounds much preferable.”

Visibly steeling himself, Aleksander asks, “What was it you wanted to ask me, sir?”

“I understand you joined from Garreg Mach’s army, after the war,” Ferdinand starts. He holds up a hand when Aleksander opens his mouth to speak. “I am not accusing you of anything,” he says. “I only wish to get an idea of everything that is happening.” Aleksander subsides.

“Yes, sir,” he says. “I did that.”

“I am curious as to why,” Ferdinand admits. Aleksander shrugs.

“Didn’t have much of a choice of it, sir. The Church army that is. My dad signed me up when I was a kid, so when the war came that’s who I fought for.”

“And then when it ended…”

“Weren’t much else I could do,” Aleksander admits. “You’ll find a lot of people like that here. Just working our way through it all. Didn’t make much of a difference _who_ was in charge for it.”

“Have you had any trouble for it since?” Ferdinand asks.

“You mean like people not happy about it? A bit. Mostly from the soldiers, to be honest. Everyone else understands what it’s like to be working at the beck and call of—” He cuts off, embarrassed perhaps, but Ferdinand can fill in the gaps for himself.

“Yes,” Ferdinand says. “I see. What is it the soldiers do?”

“Comments for the most part.” Aleksander shrugs again. “But there’s a reason most of the guards are barracked separate from them and, even then, the ones who came over mostly keep themselves to themselves.”

“So you would not have known Hanno particularly well?”

“Mostly avoided him, if I’m honest,” Aleksander confesses. “He was one of those… fanatically dedicated to the cause. He didn’t look kindly on people who weren’t as dedicated as him.”

“I imagine that would not have made him a popular man with anyone,” Ferdinand comments.

“No, not really. But it wasn’t that he did or said anything with that. Some of the soldiers, you see, they’re more likely to get…” He pauses, as if looking for the right word. “They’ll be physical about it, see. With Hanno, you just knew he looked down at you, but he didn’t take it out on you. Almost made me respect him, I suppose.”

“When did you last see him?” Ferdinand asks.

“Couple of weeks back, it must be,” Aleksander says. “I’ve been on night shifts for the past month and Hanno’s been on days. I’d come off a shift a bit early and caught him heading out to his.”

“And not again since?” Aleksander shakes his head. Ferdinand takes a moment to assess the man. Despite admitting that he had not liked the man, Aleksander is relaxed. It might be that he does not realise that Ferdinand has reason to suspect him. It might be that he is fully aware of his own innocence and does not believe there reason to worry. But it might also be a false calm.

“Did you spot anything unusual while you were on your shifts?” Ferdinand questions. “Anything out of the ordinary?” Aleksander sits back in his chair, taking a moment to think. Something obviously occurs to him because he leans forward suddenly.

“Yes,” he says, “there is. A week or so back, I was on shift around the Dagdan quarters. It was, I don’t know, about two hours in. I heard this shuffling noise, like someone dragging something along the floor. I couldn’t move far from my post, you understand, but I went and had a bit of a peek. There was a man pulling his friend along, drunk he said. I didn’t make much of it at the time, but you asked if there was anything unusual and well…”

Ferdinand frowns and taps his fingers on the desk. This, he assumes, would be around the time of Dominik’s death, perhaps even that very night.

“When I asked the men on shift, they all said they had seen or heard nothing. Except one, who later retracted his statement,” Ferdinand says.

“I took someone else’s shift,” Aleksander admits. “I doubt he’ll have wanted to admit it because he was somewhat indisposed at the time. But when he said you were asking around, I told him what I’d seen. So it’d be more believable.” He pauses. “You won’t punish him for it, will you? Only if he’d known it was so important he’d have said and sent you to me. Everyone just assumed you were making sure there’d been no funny business with the embassy that night.”

“I suppose they were not wrong in that sense,” Ferdinand murmurs. He sighs. “No, I will not punish him, you need not worry.” Aleksander relaxes.

After a few more questions, Ferdinand realises that there is not much more Aleksander can tell him about those figures. It was dark — the illumination from the torches in the corridor did not extend much beyond a few feet — and the shapes stayed near the edges of the light. Aleksander had called out to them, which was when he had been told that it was someone helping his friend back to their rooms.

“Would you recognise the voice?” Ferdinand asks, more in hope than expectation. When Aleksander shakes his head, he sighs. “Well,” he says. “Thank you for your help nevertheless.”

Once Aleksander has left, Ferdinand leans back in his chair to think. In all honesty, the information that Aleksander has provided is not that helpful. It confirms what they had previously suspected of Dominik’s killing, but does not offer them other avenues of investigation. Aleksander had mentioned he thought they were headed in the direction of the south wing of the palace, although once they left his sight, they might have gone anywhere.

With a groan, he waves for the next person to be sent in.

*

When, finally, he has questioned everyone, he stands up and stretches. A whole day spent in that chair has made him stiff and irritable. Combined with a general sense of tiredness, all he really wants to do is crawl into bed and call it a day. Instead, he separates the statements he has taken into two piles. In the first are individuals he does not believe could have done the deed — of course, no one has fully removed themselves from suspicion — and in the second, are those he has more questions over.

There are six names. Duncan, Leon, Marta, Willem, Aleksander and Alys.

Duncan, Willem and Alys had all arrived following the war, while Marta had been another member of the Church’s army. All four of them had seemed to Ferdinand just a bit resentful of their position now. He supposes he can hardly blame them — much like Aleksander had pointed out, they were subject to the whims of those they served, which must have seemed as changeable as the winds at times. And then there is the question of whether they resented enough to kill.

Each of them, to varying degrees, can account for their movements on the nights of the murders, although none of them have airtight alibis. It could easily be one of them, all of them, or none of them at all.

Ferdinand puts his pen down, sighing. He is hardly going to make a breakthrough so late, he has to admit. The best thing for him to do would be to rest.

So he picks up his notes — he does not want to risk leaving them in his office when it has already been broken into once — and locks his door behind him. The night has long since arrived and the corridors are deserted.

Something is wrong. He does not know what, or why, but a chill steals over him. _The corridors are deserted,_ he thinks.

But they should not be.

He turns left into another, past where there is usually a guard standing. There is no one.

It is, of course, entirely possible that the guard is doing rounds, patrolling the area rather than remaining in one place. Something tells Ferdinand that this is not that, though. There is an eerie quality to the silence, a prickle on the back of his neck as though he is being watched, but when he turns, there is no one there.

He continues walking but, as surreptitiously as possible, he palms a knife out from its sheath at his belt. If he is right here, if there is someone following him, he does not want to be unarmed.

In the dark, the corridors seem to stretch for miles longer and Ferdinand’s footsteps echo loudly in the silence. He did not think he had worked so late that there would be absolutely no one about, but it seems that he did. And, now that he thinks about it, he can feel tiredness dragging at his eyelids.

A swishing sound behind him, like material dragging across a stone floor, and he turns sharply. Again, there is no one.

Ferdinand has never felt an urge to learn magic. As a child, he had idolised the knights of old for their daring bravery and great exploits. He had devoured story after story of their battles, imagining himself in their position, astride a steed and cutting down everything in his path. Those who had magic, he thought, stayed at the fringes of the fight, unwilling to dirty their hands. Perhaps some part of him, as a child, thought these people cowards in a way.

But now, in a dark corridor, being followed by an unknown quantity with only a knife to protect himself, he wishes he _had_ learnt magic. If only so that he might light his path.

Another sound, this time a pebble skittering across the floor, as though someone has kicked it. Ferdinand speeds up.

He must be close to the wing’s exit, he thinks. Unless he has managed to get himself so completely turned around, he has to have been walking long enough to reach it. In fact, he thinks he can see the distant flickering of torchlight up ahead, although it might be his eyes playing tricks on him. He inhales sharply and picks up his pace even more, almost running now.

The hint of light gets stronger now and Ferdinand is flooded with relief at the sight of it. He can even hear the chatter of a few people still wandering the corridor, perhaps leaving one of the celebrations Edelgard had arranged for the Dagdan congregation. Whatever it is, he is as glad to see them as he has been anyone before.

A few paces more and he bursts into the lit corridor, wincing and covering his eyes as the sudden brightness. Now, the fear that he had felt just moments ago seems foolish and he flinches at the memory of it. His heart is still thumping hard in his chest, the last reminder of it. He looks back the way he has come, but, of course, now he is in the light, the darkness appears even more complete.

“It was nothing,” he murmurs to himself. “It must have been nothing.”

*

The next morning, he writes a note to be sent to the Ministry of Information, requesting whatever intel they have on, first, the individuals he has identified as most suspect, and second, anything they might be able to find out about any extended family or friends. He does not expect a quick response but, within two hours, a messenger has arrived bearing reams and reams of paper, which he dumps on Ferdinand’s desk with the look of a man who is glad not to be going through such a stack himself.

“They said your second question would take a bit longer, sir,” he says. “But they’ve sent messages off and should be able to provide you with something within a couple of days.”

“Thank you,” Ferdinand says. “In the meantime, I am sure this will keep me occupied.” He gestures to the pile of papers. The messenger gives him half a smile, as though he is not quite sure if Ferdinand is joking or not, and departs. Ferdinand looks again at the stack and quails a bit at the thought of trawling through yet more paperwork, but apparently six people have created enough for about sixty, so go through it he must.

The first thing he does is split the papers into separate piles according to whom they refer. Aleksander’s is by far and away the largest, so that is the one he starts with.

Most of the records seem to be regarding events for which Aleksander had been formally — or, more often, informally — reprimanded as a guard. After a while, Ferdinand started to notice a pattern. Aleksander was very good at toeing the line for what was technically allowed as a guard, although frowned upon. While the papers all indicated reprimands had been issued, Aleksander had never truly been punished for his behaviour.

But then again, Ferdinand has to admit, if he had been on the receiving end of some of the abuse that Aleksander had been dealt, detailed as it is in the reports, perhaps he would not have done nearly so well at complying. It appears that most of Aleksander’s superior officers had felt much the same — as far as Ferdinand is able to tell, the only formal reprimands had come when to do elsewise would appear suspicious.

Even so. Aleksander had not mentioned anything of the sort when he had spoken with him. And if he had lied about that, might he not have lied about much more?

The final sheet on the pile is a summary of Aleksander’s background. He had been born in a small village in Aegir, in an area of strong support for the Church, so it is no wonder that he ended up fighting for them. His father had been a low-level individual in the Church hierarchy, he discovers, and his mother had been a devout member of the local congregation. Aleksander, however, had agitated for more than just a role in the army, getting into numerous fights, some so bad that at least one opponent had to be discharged from the army on account of his injuries. In the end, Aleksander had deserted, mere weeks before the end of the war.

How much the desertion owed to a dislike of the Church and all it represented, how much it owed to a genuine desire to join the other side, and how much it constituted a rat leaving a sinking ship — none of that is evident in the file. For that, he would have to ask the man himself.

He jots down a few reminders to himself and moves onto the next file, that belonging to Willem.

When Ferdinand had met Willem, he had immediately thought that the man had not possessed the requisite strength to overcome anyone, let alone the three men who had been killed. That was not to say he could not have committed the crime, of course, but Ferdinand had thought it highly unlikely.

Willem’s file seems to bear that reasoning out. There is very little to it: details about the man’s life, his wife and children, but nothing that would indicate him capable of murder. In fact, besides the resentment Ferdinand had heard in his voice — a resentment he might pin on Willem’s perceived futility, rather than his position — there is little indication that Willem is not perfectly happy as he is.

He sets the file aside and picks up the next.

Like Aleksander, Marta had defected from the Church army. Only, unlike her compatriot, she had done so _after_ the end of the war, as one of the survivors of that final battle. If Ferdinand’s memory of her interview is anything to go by, she was not particularly happy to do so. But whether that would play out as a campaign of terror? Ferdinand had got the impression that she was a very straightforward woman, a soldier who would elect a full-frontal assault over a campaign of attrition.

Still, he is not inclined to overlook her as a possible culprit. Especially when two of the remaining three files provide nothing. Duncan was a young farmer who, in his own words, was “chomping at the bit” to join Edelgard’s army, but was held back by his — again in his own words — controlling mother-in-law. His file notes a willingness to get into fights, perhaps a result of his bitterness at being unable to be part of the war effort, but bar fights. The sort to end in, at worst, a black eye and some badly bruised pride. Not someone you could see as a cold-blooded murderer. In all honesty, not someone you could see _planning_ it all.

Alys appears an even less likely prospect. When Ferdinand had spoken to her, she had barely raised her voice above a whisper, cringing into the seat. The only time she had shown any forcefulness had been when she talked about the woman in charge of the laundry. It appeared that Alys believed herself to be better qualified in the running of the place and, even in the most extreme cases, Ferdinand does not see how that might drive someone to murder, let alone the murder of three unrelated people.

Of course, it could be that these people are so well hidden within the palace, that they have so deeply embedded themselves into life here, that Ferdinand would not be able to tell whether they truly were who they said they were. Just the thought of it makes his head hurt.

He has to draw the line somewhere. He has to decide if he is going to forge ahead, believing these people to be, for the most part, fundamentally truthful, or if he is going to suspect each and every one of them. Because Hubert might be able to keep all the suspicious threads of this investigation in hand, but Ferdinand knows he cannot.

He crosses out three names. Duncan, Alys and Willem. Which leaves him only three.

He has not yet picked up Leon’s file — it is the thinnest of the six and Ferdinand wonders whether that is because he is a genuinely uninteresting man, or it is something more sinister. He pulls it towards him and sifts through the papers.

The first thing that jumps out to him is that Leon’s mother is recorded as having died a full three years earlier than Leon had told him, in the middle of the war. There is, of course, a reasonable explanation: that Leon had not wanted to make himself out as a coward, however true that might have been. Equally, he might have been waiting to see who was victorious before declaring allegiance. Either one is plausible, and does not lead to the conclusion that the man is a vicious murderer.

But.

If Leon lied about this one thing, who is to say he had not lied about _more_. Besides the date of his mother’s death, his file is sparse. He had been born in a largish village just to the south of Ferdinand’s childhood home. Close enough to have been surrounded by the most patriotic perhaps? Or maybe familiarity bred contempt?

His career at the palace was unremarkable. He had been neither praised or promoted, nor censured in any way. He was, to all intents and purposes, the perfect worker.

And yet, Ferdinand cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong. Surely, he thinks to himself, surely it is not possible for someone to have that clear a slate. No matter who they are.

All of this means, he realises, that he must go and question again each of these three. If he can trip someone up in a lie, get them to admit something they should not… maybe it will be the break that he is waiting for.

*

Ferdinand had never realised quite how sprawling the palace was until this moment. There is nothing like looking for a single individual in a vast complex to make you realise the enormity of a task, he muses, as he wanders through the corridors. He is looking for Aleksander, right now, although later he knows he must locate both Marta and Leon. To say he is not looking forward to that particular moment would be an understatement of immense proportions.

According to the guards’ shifts, Aleksander should be on the eastern walls right now, but Ferdinand has wandered along them and back three times now, and there is no sign of the man.

“Probably gone to have a piss,” is all another guard can offer.

Ferdinand refrains from remarking that he has been standing there for the past twenty minutes, and that if a man takes twenty minutes to have a piss, there is probably something very wrong with him. Barely.

He wonders if Aleksander has merely exchanged his shift with someone else. Perhaps he had not wanted to do this one, perhaps somebody had not wanted to do theirs. Either way, it seems pretty clear to Ferdinand that he is not about to find the man where he ought to be.

Which begs the question of just how easy would it be for Aleksander to have not been where he was supposed to be for the nights of the murders. None of the other guards has seemed to bat an eyelid at the fact that he is not here. Would it really be so simple as to just… miss the shift? Would truly no one say a word?

Ferdinand’s musings are interrupted by a hiss of pain as someone levers their way up the stairs to the ramparts. He glances around to see Aleksander, face a myriad of bruises, wincing as he climbs.

“What happened to _you_?” the guard next to Ferdinand asks in surprise. “You look like you’ve gone ten rounds with a demonic beast.”

“Feels like it too,” Aleksander mutters. He gives a weak smile, leaning back against the wall in exhaustion.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the guard continues. “You know you’d be given a day off if you but asked.”

“Don’t want one,” Aleksander waves away the offer. “If I take a day off, they’ll think they’ve won.”

“Who is they?” Ferdinand asks. He feels a little guilty at the way Aleksander jumps, and then winces again in pain. Clearly, he had not realised that Ferdinand was here.

“No one,” he mumbles, not meeting Ferdinand’s eyes. “Just some of the soldiers.”

“And did they do this to you?”

“I walked into a door.” Aleksander says it like he has learnt it by rote, woodenly and sullenly. He says it as though he expects it to be enough, as though it has always been enough before.

“Bullshit,” Ferdinand says softly. Aleksander’s surprised eyes flick to meet his. “I know you are lying to me, Aleksander. I am not going to insist on the truth about it, since that particular truth is not why I came, but I know you are lying. If you ever feel the need to _stop_ lying, then my door will be open.” A wariness flickers across Aleksander’s face, as though he does not quite believe what he is hearing.

“Why _are_ you here, then?” he asks.

“I had a few more questions about the other day,” Ferdinand says, watching Aleksander’s face for any sign that he might be concerned about this, but there is nothing.

Aleksander shrugs. “Ask away.”

“Shall we walk?” Ferdinand asks. At this, Aleksander frowns just slightly, eyes jumping over to the other guard and back.

“Sure.”

They walk slowly along the ramparts, since Aleksander is so obviously in pain. Ferdinand does not speak immediately, but he has no need to — Aleksander broaches the topic first.

“I guess you’re here about my disciplinary record,” he says. Ferdinand hears a hitch in his breath and stops, letting Aleksander pause too, resting on his arms against the rampart.

“Yes,” he says. “Why did you not mention them?”

“It wasn’t relevant,” Aleksander says quickly. “It still isn't. It has nothing to do with what you’re looking for.”

“Is that not my judgement to make?”

“I just—” Aleksander starts, stops and lets out a frustrated breath. “It changes what people think of you when they find out. And I can’t just say ‘none of it was me’ because they won’t believe it.”

“Walking into doors again?” Aleksander glances up and huffs a surprised laugh.

“Yeah, that.”

“I assume the problem comes because you… hit the door back, as it were.”

“No offence, sir, but I’d like to see you take some of what they— the _door_ is dealing out.”

“Sounds like quite a door,” Ferdinand remarks wryly, and now Aleksander laughs truly, aware of the surrealness of their conversation. “I believe you when you say it is unrelated,” Ferdinand continues after a moment. “My offer still stands though, if you decided you ever did want to talk.”

“Thank you,” Aleksander says gravely.

Ferdinand leaves him there, looking out over the town, and makes his way back down from the ramparts. He feels fairly confident that he can cross Aleksander off as a suspect, which leaves him with only two. Marta and Leon.

He finds Marta in the officers’ mess, glowering down at her food. Given that every time he has ever seen her, she has been glaring, he does not think this is particularly unusual. When he slips in to sit opposite her, the scowl is aimed at him.

“Marta,” he says with a smile because, really, what else can he do. He fixes the grin at her until she begrudgingly puts down her spoon.

“Yes?” she asks roughly. “What is it?”

“I just had a few more questions to ask,” he says. When she does not respond, he takes it as implicit permission to do so. “How did you feel about Ludwig von Aegir?”

Obviously, she is not expecting this question because she is startled out of her frown and her mouth drops open ever so slightly.

“You can be honest,” Ferdinand continues. “In fact, please do be. You need not worry about offending me.”

Marta eyes him curiously. “You won’t… there won’t be any punishment if I do offend you?” she asks tentatively. Ferdinand frowns.

“No,” he insists. “No, none. I promise.” Marta nods, although she still seems a little wary of answering.

“I can’t say I liked him, really,” she starts hesitantly. “I… Sir, I won’t lie, I believed in Rhea and the Church, you know that. But I never believed in _him_. I never wanted to align myself with a system that enabled or even uplifted him.” She pauses, takes a breath and continues, gaining momentum. “I hated him. I thought the Church had the right of it in the war, but he was bleeding Aegir dry and I wasn’t sad to see him go.” She looks at Ferdinand almost defiantly as she says this. It is the most — non-scowling — emotion that Ferdinand has ever seen her show, and he finds himself liking her somewhat more.

“I will not argue with you there,” he says. “Well, maybe about the Church being right, but besides that…” This provokes a smile from her. “Why did you join us at the end?” he asks. “You had the choice either way.”

Marta grimaces. “Am I still allowed honesty?” she asks and, when Ferdinand nods, continues. “It wasn’t much of a choice. Join you, or leave, but everyone would know that you fought for the Church. You might as well just sign your own death warrant. And besides, I didn’t have anyone to go back to.”

“And now? Are you still of the opinion the Church was right?”

“I am… less convinced of it, I will admit,” Marta says. “It is hard to let all of it go. I have lived it all my life.” She shrugs. “But you didn’t come here to hear me complaining about it, did you?”

“No,” Ferdinand admits. “I did not. But you have answered any questions I had.”

“Would those questions have been whether I was still enough enamoured by the Church to kill?”

“Not the Church,” is all Ferdinand says and Marta’s eyebrows rise as she takes in the implication.

“I see.” A pause. “I could be lying to you, though.”

“You could be,” Ferdinand allows. “But I am willing to assume that you are not.”

“Not many people would be.”

“That would be their loss, then.” At this, Marta smiles truly for the first time.

“You are not how I thought you’d be,” she admits. She rises from her seat. “But, if you’ll excuse me, my shift is about to start.” Ferdinand gives her a nod and watches as she walks away.

 _Two down_ , he thinks. _One left._

Leon, however, proves to be much harder to locate than either Aleksander or Marta. He is supposedly on call as a messenger, but neither of the people in the office that Ferdinand asks has seen him all day. Ferdinand hangs around for a bit, to see if he shows up, but after an hour, he admits defeat.

“Tell him to come and see me when he gets here,” he requests of an increasingly nervous secretary, before leaving.

He wonders if Leon is avoiding him, but dismisses the idea. There is such a thing as being overly suspicious and he is starting to approach that point. It is much more likely that Leon is merely skipping his shift, perhaps hungover.

There is little else to do but to go back to his own office and start organising his papers again. Perhaps doing so, he thinks — more in hope than expectation — will jog his memory, or reveal a new avenue he has not yet explored. And perhaps also Leon will decide to make an appearance.

*

Sometime that afternoon, as Ferdinand is sorting his notes, trying to make some sense of it all, Edelgard sends word that Hubert has returned. Some emotion roils in Ferdinand’s stomach. Anticipation, perhaps. Whatever it is, he pushes it down. He refuses to let Hubert unsettle him like this. He picks the message up and reads it again, just as a test. The contents still make his heart lurch in a funny way, but less so now. He sighs.

Edelgard has also requested that he come to her rooms to deliver a progress report on his investigation. This, Ferdinand takes to mean, is a sign that Hubert has found something. Something urgent.

He debates putting it off, if only for a moment longer, but he knows that he will have to face the man at some point. He may as well bite the bullet and get it done with. He takes his notes and shoves them haphazardly into the secret compartment in his desk drawer, which he then locks. As a further precaution, he also locks his office door behind him. He does not want to risk them being found in the event of another break-in.

He draws in a deep breath and lets it out, rolling his shoulders back in an attempt to exude confidence. And then he strides off towards Edelgard’s rooms and Hubert.

When he gets there, he does not let himself think about knocking, does not give himself any time to back out. At Edelgard’s direction, he enters.

It is strange, some part of him thinks, that he was somehow expecting Hubert to have changed. He has only been away for a handful of days, but _Ferdinand_ feels as though _he_ has changed in that time. Hubert, however, looks just the same. He stands by the fireplace, looming somewhat, tapping at the mantlepiece. He has not yet so much as glanced in Ferdinand’s direction.

“Ferdinand,” Edelgard says. “Good, you are here. We can get started. Hubert has news.” She gestures for Ferdinand to join her, standing over her desk. He does so and, after a second, Hubert joins them.

“My spies intercepted this message,” he says, laying a sheet of paper on the desk. Both Edelgard and Ferdinand lean over. Scrawled across the page is three lines of something that is both barely legible and clearly coded.

“Well, that is _a_ message,” Edelgard says dryly. She does not roll her eyes at Hubert’s dramatics, but it is a close thing. “Please tell me you have actually managed to decode it.”

“Yes,” Hubert says. “I have it here.” He places another sheet alongside the first, this one filled with neat handwriting that Ferdinand recognises as Hubert’s own.

_Message received. They do not suspect. Everything is going to plan._

“How do you know this relates to the murders?” Ferdinand thinks this is an eminently reasonable question but obviously Hubert disagrees, for he directs a glare Ferdinand’s way.

 _At least,_ Ferdinand thinks, _he is now looking at me._

“It is a valid point,” Edelgard chimes in, clearly desiring to head any argument off at the pass. “There is not exactly huge amounts of information to go on here.”

“It was intercepted heading towards Aegir,” Hubert answers. “My men…” He pauses. “For the past few weeks, I have been failing to receive reports from Aegir and the surrounding lands,” he explains. “The most likely cause of that was that my spies were discovered. So, I went out there myself with a few more men to see what was going on.”

“And?”

“Mostly rumours.” Hubert shrugs. “I did not find anything, but the men who remained behind have since reported troop movements in the area. They intercepted this message just inside the borders.”

“So we might assume that it was headed for somewhere within them,” Edelgard muses. “Well, that ties in to your theory, Ferdinand.”

“Did your spies have anything to say about _why_ these troops were moving?” Ferdinand asks, fixing his gaze on the letter on the table.

“Not as such,” Hubert admits. “It was all very secretive. I was barely able to find out what happened to my original spies.”

“Not unusual,” Ferdinand says. “Those lands have always had a distinct sense of identity over and above that of the Empire. And, if anything, my father made it even more so.”

“How likely is it that we can expect a full-scale revolt, do you think?” Edelgard asks. “I imagine they cannot hope to keep those such plans very secret for long.”

“I would imagine,” Ferdinand says, putting the pieces together in his mind as he speaks, “that thus far, we have been facing a small faction. We may even extrapolate that they are a faction who would have supported my father. But if they had such support that they could march on us, we would know.”

“The murders are aimed at destabilising us then,” Edelgard concludes. “And once that is done…”

“Yes,” Ferdinand says, nodding absently. “I would say that is most likely. Now is probably our best chance to step in and put a stop to it.”

“Before they realise what we know and before they have recruited enough to mount a challenge,” Hubert says.

Even though they are, to all intents and purposes, still arguing, even though they have not spoken in days, Ferdinand still feels a warmth in his chest when Hubert agrees with him. He glances across at him and then quickly away again when he sees that Hubert is watching him steadily.

“Yes,” he says, clearing his throat when his voice comes out hoarse. “It would be beneficial to us though if we could work out just how much support such a faction might garner.” Hubert nods sharply.

“I shall send word.” He pauses, seeming to steel himself to ask something. “You said your sisters had not appreciated you siding against your father. Could they have something to do with this?” Ferdinand takes a moment to think about it, past the dull sting of that years old rejection.

“I would not have thought so,” he says eventually with a shrug. “They were never too keen on _doing_ a whole lot. But I did not know their husbands so well as all that, and _they_ might be.”

“Either way, it appears it would be safe to assume you are in the most danger,” Edelgard says. “After all, whose death would destabilise our rule more than yours.”

Ferdinand swallows and opens his mouth to say something — he does not know what — but Hubert interrupts.

“It would be best if you were under guard at all times,” he says. “I know you do not like the idea—”

“You are correct, I _dis_ like it immensely,” Ferdinand cuts him off. “Are you sure this is necessary?” he appeals to Edelgard.

“Yes,” she says firmly. “I am not budging on this one.” Ferdinand sighs.

“Fine,” he mutters. “Fine.” He sighs again. “Do we know where the message originated from?” he asks.

“It was a palace bird,” Hubert says. “That is all I know.”

“A _palace bird_ ,” Ferdinand repeats. “Either whoever sent it is immensely confident in their ability not to be caught, or a complete and utter idiot.”

“There are several hundred birds sent out every day,” Edelgard points out. “Perhaps they thought it would go unnoticed.”

“They keep lists of what is sent, though,” Ferdinand says. “You have to sign out the birds for use. It is just a matter of checking that list to see who appears on it, and I can find out who sent the bird.”

“They might have used a false name,” Hubert comments. “You would have to narrow it down to people you do not recognise first.” Ferdinand must concede the point.

“Oh, good,” he mutters, running a hand over his eyes. “Yet more paperwork.”

“Surely you do not need to check all of the names you have listed,” Edelgard says. “Can you truly rule no one out?”

“There are some who seem less likely,” Ferdinand allows. “But very few overall have alibis for every one of the murders so, while I am focusing instead on a handful who seem the most likely, I am reluctant to categorically say the others did _not_ do it.”

“And these few you are focused on? You have reason to believe they are most suspicious?” Edelgard asks.

“Yes,” Ferdinand says. “I looked at exactly when these people came to us — most of them were in the force that attacked Garreg Mach at the start of the war. Then a handful joined over the next five years. The ones I thought were most likely to include our culprit were those who joined us _after_ the war.”

“Once they knew who had won,” Edelgard murmurs.

“Are you suggesting they have been biding their time since then?” Hubert asks. “I cannot believe we would have missed such an infiltration.”

“There were so many people who surrendered in the end, I do not know if we can possibly have vetted them all that thoroughly,” Ferdinand says. “But, to answer your question, I do not believe that they have merely been lying in wait. I think it is just as possible that someone took advantage of the fact that they were already in place here.”

“I doubt we will know for certain until we discover who did it,” Edelgard remarks. She sighs. “Well, if that is all, I need some rest. I have meetings all day with the Dagdan officials tomorrow and when I say they could cure insomnia…”

Ferdinand huffs a laugh. “Do not let Dorothea keep you up, then,” he tells her. Edelgard narrows her eyes at him. Ferdinand raises his hands in mock surrender. “We are going!”

Outside in the corridor, an awkward silence grows between them. For all his bluster to Edelgard a few days earlier, about communicating with Hubert when he returned, Ferdinand cannot help but wonder if he has lost the ability to. Perhaps he is making mountains out of molehills, but a small part of him worries he is not. A small part that is not being helped by the continued hush between them.

“I will come by your rooms early tomorrow,” Hubert says eventually, breaking it sharply enough that Ferdinand almost starts.

“You will?” He is confused. “Why?”

“Who else did you think I would trust to guard you?” Hubert asks. Ferdinand has to admit that Hubert has a point.

“Fine,” he concedes, waving a hand. “I have some more questions to ask of a few people, but that is all.” Hubert looks as though he is about to say something but thinks better of it.

“Alright,” is all he says in the end. A pause. “Are you heading back to your rooms?” Everything about the way they are currently speaking with one another is stilted and Ferdinand hates it. But he does not know how to change that right now. He does not know if now is the right _time_ to try and change it.

“Yes,” he says. Hubert does not move.

“Shall we go?” he asks, after a moment. “I am to be guarding you, so I thought I should walk you back to your rooms tonight.”

“Oh,” Ferdinand says, suddenly understanding. “ _Oh_. Well, I… uh… I suppose, yes.” He has not quite managed to keep the lack of enthusiasm from his voice and he sees Hubert suppress something that might be a flinch.

He turns away hurriedly and starts towards his rooms. A second later, he hears the whisper of Hubert’s steps behind him.

Neither of them speaks during the walk. Hubert remains a pace behind the entire way and Ferdinand misses fiercely how they were before the argument. He wants to ask Hubert’s opinion on his theories, he wants to know if Hubert has the same feelings about Ferdinand’s suspects. He wants to go back in time and undo it all.

They come to his rooms. Ferdinand reaches a hand out to the doorknob and then pauses. He turns. “Hubert,” he starts.

“I will be by tomorrow morning,” Hubert says, cutting him off. It is Ferdinand’s turn to try not to flinch now. He wants to grab Hubert by the collar and insist they talk, but, instead, all he does is nod.

“Of course,” he says. “I will see you then.” Hubert gives him a sharp nod in return and, without another word, turns on his heel and leaves.

*

Hubert arrives early the next morning, before Ferdinand has managed to get himself fully ready for the day. He is just tying his cravat when Hubert knocks and, swearing under his breath, he tugs on his coat and opens the door. “I need to go to the kitchens,” he says, before Hubert can get a word in. “I have not had breakfast yet and I need _something_ before I can start asking yet more questions in anything approaching civility.”

“I had not forgotten your appetite,” Hubert says, his tone almost amused. Ferdinand glances up and catches Hubert hurriedly looking away. Something tense and awkward balloons between them.

“Yes,” Ferdinand says, clearing his throat, “well. We had best get going. You know, people to see, breakfasts to eat…” He trails off. The attempt at humour has done nothing to improve on the ever-growing discomfort, so he twists his lips into something that might hopefully resemble a smile and heads in the direction of the kitchens. After a moment, he hears Hubert start to follow.

The kitchens are busy, even at this time of day, and the fires are already burning steadily in preparation for the evening’s feasting. Ferdinand remembers something about another celebration of the Dagdan emissary, and wonders if he can get away with not attending. He ducks around two men carrying a large box of what seems to be potatoes, and makes a beeline towards the corner, where a man stands over a small stove.

“Johann,” Ferdinand says, “I hope I am not too late!” Johann turns to him, rolling his eyes in fond amusement.

“You know very well you are not,” he says. “You say this every time and you’ve never been so, not once. I do believe you’re starting to become a bit predictable, Prime Minister.”

“I shall have to do something about that,” Ferdinand muses. “But not yet! When you are least expecting it.”

Ferdinand pulls out a bench at a nearby table and sits, gesturing for Hubert to do the same. He does so cautiously, and not a small bit confused. Johann potters about the stove, doing whatever it is he deems necessary to prepare his sorcerous breakfasts. Ferdinand does not ask, because that would ruin the magic of it.

Ferdinand had met Johann in the army, back in the midst of the war. He had been part of the infantry, on the front line during every battle, but he had dreamed of becoming a chef, of owning a restaurant when everything was said and done. Ferdinand had discovered this on one of the many nights he had sat with the soldiers instead of in Edelgard’s tent.

An injury during the final fight — the crushing of all the bones in his right hand — had almost put paid to Johann’s dream. Ferdinand had taken it upon himself to find positions in the palace for everyone who wanted them, arguing fiercely with Edelgard that it would have been no thanks at all to cut loose all those who had fought for her with nary a word after all was said and done. Johann had been one of the first.

And here he remained now. Ferdinand had ventured to ask a couple of times whether Johann still wanted to be a chef, but he had been gently rebuffed each time. “After all,” Johann had said, the last time he had enquired, “who would feed you then?”

So, every morning, Ferdinand came down for breakfast with Johann and he would be damned if he lets Hubert’s trailing figure stop that. It does not hurt that Johann makes the best breakfasts that Ferdinand has ever eaten, of course.

“Why are we here?” Hubert asks softly, barely a sliver above the quietest whisper.

“To eat, of course,” Ferdinand replies, his voice just as low.

“To eat?” Hubert parrots, as though he has never heard of the concept. “That is all?”

“Well, yes,” Ferdinand says, “I need food before I can start the day chasing around people to ask questions.” Hubert frowns, but lets it be. Ferdinand debates asking him just why he is so bothered by it all, but he shrugs internally and decides against it. He is probably just unimpressed with the number of people around them, all people who could potentially do them harm.

But even so, he makes sure not to linger too long on eating. If there _is_ someone out to get him, the kitchen might be the perfect place to do so.

*

It takes longer than Ferdinand would like to track down the maids who had found Hanno’s body. The first problem he runs into is that the maids’ rota is nowhere to be found. The housekeeper clucks about her office, trying to locate it, while Ferdinand stands in steadily stagnating patience. Eventually, she produces it, rumpled and stained with something that looks like coffee, only to find that it has been changed since she wrote it out.

“A few of the girls are ill,” she explains. “I’ve had to move a few people around.”

And, because today the universe hates Ferdinand, she does not quite recall who she moved where. “I know I sent the girls you’re looking for somewhere else,” she explains, wringing her hands fretfully, “but I can’t remember _where_.”

Ferdinand sighs. “Do you have a list of places you _might_ have moved them to?” he asks. He thinks he does well enough in keeping the impatience from his tone, but, from the corner of his eye, he sees Hubert shoot him a sharp look, so perhaps he does not. “And then we shall be out of your hair.”

She looks rather relieved as she nods, and Ferdinand feels a pang of guilt for taking his frustration out on her. On a separate sheet of paper, she scrawls a list of locations where they might find the maids. There are only three. Ferdinand breathes his own sigh of relief that there are so few.

“Thank you,” he says, taking the list from her.

“They’re not in any trouble, are they?” she asks as he turns to leave. “Only, they’re good workers, they are. I wouldn’t want to lose them.”

“They are not, I can assure you,” Ferdinand tells her. “I just have a few questions I wish to ask of them.” The housekeeper nods, mollified, and lets them depart.

In the corridor, Ferdinand examines the list. Two of the locations are across the other side of the palace, but one is just around the corner, making it the obvious place to start. “Shall we split up?” he asks Hubert, more in hope than expectation. Hubert gives him a look and Ferdinand shrugs. “It was worth a try.”

He leads Hubert up a set of stairs towards the back of the housekeeping wing and out into the gallery that lines the great hall. “This is where they should be,” he murmurs. He does not know why he is being quiet, only that the space here feels hallowed. Like he should be reverent of it.

He can hear the soft chatter of the maids on the other side of the gallery so he follows the sound, just the click of his and Hubert’s heels as an indication of their progress. The maids glance up as they approach and Ferdinand sees that neither of them is who they are looking for. “I do apologise for the interruption,” he says, “but I was looking for Mila and Sofia. Might you know where they are?”

The maids look at one another and, seemingly in mute astonishment, shake their heads. “No, sir,” one of them says. “We started earlier than they did this morning, so we didn’t see them come in.”

“Ah.” Ferdinand gives half a smile. “No matter then. I thank you for your help, nonetheless.” Again, neither seems to know what to say. They are both of them blushing a little bit — for what reason Ferdinand cannot discern — and cannot look him in the eye as he bids them good day.

“What was that all about?” he muses as they wander away. Hubert makes a disbelieving noise.

“Surely you know?” He seems to have been surprised into making the comment.

“No?” Ferdinand says, confused. “I would not be wondering if I knew.”

“They find you attractive, like mos—” Hubert cuts himself off and Ferdinand watches, fascinated, as the tips of his ears stain red.

If he were more sure of where they stood now, if he did not feel as though everything had been torn apart, he might have made some comment now. He might have teased Hubert, watched the red of his ears further bleed onto his cheeks. He might have wondered just how much else of Hubert might be coloured that same red.

But he is not sure, so he does not. Instead, he lets what Hubert said go, looking away as if that might temper any awkwardness built between them.

*

Thankfully — for Ferdinand’s patience, or the growing sense of unease — when they arrive at the north wing, they all but bump into Mila and Sofia as they are about to leave. “Ah,” Ferdinand says, as the maids start. “I do apologise. You are just who I was looking for.”

“Sir?” one of them — Mila, Ferdinand thinks — asks. She looks nervous, like she is wondering just why he is here, weighing up exactly what they might have done to merit this.

“You are not in trouble,” Ferdinand hastens to reassure them. “Far from it. I merely had one or two more questions to ask you about the… the incident last week.” Sofia pales just slightly at the mention of it, and clutches at Mila’s arm.

“You haven’t found who did it, then?” she asks in a quavering voice. “Oh, Goddess, are we going to be next?” She sounds as though she is building up to hysteria and Ferdinand shakes his head adamantly.

“No,” he says firmly. “You are in no danger.” A lie, a small one, because he cannot truly be sure that they are not. But he can see that she is worried enough as it is. She relaxes visibly. “I only wished to ask if you had remembered anything, perhaps seen anything odd or otherwise unexpected about the place, when you came in.” Sofia bites her lip and turns to Mila.

“I remember thinking that it was funny, the door wasn’t quite closed,” she says. “But that’s not much help is it?”

“There was something stuck in it too,” Mila says. “It’s a beggar of a door, if you’ll excuse my language, but none of us maids like it.” She pauses, hesitates.

“Why is that?” Ferdinand asks, prompting her to continue.

“It’s got ways to catch on your clothes like nobody’s business,” Mila explains. “Like it’s grabbing at you or something. I mean, I know it couldn’t. It’s not enchanted,” she adds hastily. “But we know how to avoid it, all of us. So I found it a little strange that there was a shred of fabric in there.”

“What colour was it, do you remember?”

“Blue,” she says firmly. “It was so different from anything else anyone was wearing, that’s what I remember. A deep blue.”

Try as he might, though, Ferdinand cannot think of anyone he has seen wearing blue recently. Not unless it came from one of the Dagdans.

“Thank you,” he says, nonetheless, “that is most useful. I had one more question for you and then I shall leave you be: you did not tell anyone how you found Hanno, did you?”

“No, sir,” Sofia says straightaway, almost horrified at the thought of it. “You said not to, so we didn’t.” Mila nods emphatically in agreement.

“We wouldn’t have,” she says. “How would we even describe it, it was too horrifying to even think of.”

Something annoys at the edge of Ferdinand’s thoughts, but when he attempts to inspect it, it flits away from him. Something somewhere does not add up. But if the maids are telling the truth, then who is lying?

“I am sorry you had to see it,” he tells them. “But thank you, for answering my questions.”

As he and Hubert walk away, Ferdinand knows that Hubert has noted his distraction, although he refrains from asking anything until they are well away from the maids, in a quiet corridor where they cannot be overheard.

“Something is bothering you,” he remarks. Ferdinand stops walking and turns to face him. It is, perhaps, the first time he has fully looked Hubert in the eyes all day and it takes him a moment to find the words to answer.

“Yes, but I could not say what,” he admits. “It is just… there is _something_. That is all.”

“Something as in you know who did it?” Hubert probes.

“I do not know,” Ferdinand says, a little sharply he has to admit. “I just know that something does not add up. I would have to read through everything to be able to work out what, though.”

“So, we shall,” Hubert says, with a shrug, as though he has not just committed to spending the rest of the day with Ferdinand when they are not sure of where they stand. But he finds, when faced with the prospect of going through reams of notes again, he cannot bring himself to complain.

*

The corridor outside of Ferdinand’s rooms is windowless and lit by flickering torchlight, providing plenty of shadows to lurk in. Which is, when it comes down to it, a slightly worrying prospect, made even more so by the fact that the shadows are such effective lurking places that Ferdinand had not even noticed the man and he had all but walked right past him. “Hey,” Hubert says sharply. “What are you doing?”

That is when Ferdinand spots him, and spots the glint of a knife in his hand. He has barely a second to catch a glimpse before the man is gone, springing away from them in a flash. Hubert moves to pursue him first and, after a beat, Ferdinand follows.

The man is fast, shooting through the corridors with an ease that tells Ferdinand he knows this palace well. Ahead of him, he sees Hubert starting to cast his spells but, before he can get them off, the corridors start filling with servants and Ferdinand realises that the man is doing all he can to cut them off at the knees in pursuit. Hubert will not want to accidentally catch a bystander with a spell instead of him.

They rush down a flight of stairs and into a large courtyard. Now that they are in daylight, Ferdinand can see that the person they are pursuing is tall and lithe. He slips through crowds of bodies with consummate ease and Ferdinand is starting to think that this is where they will lose him. Then, in the corner of the courtyard, the man stops and looks behind him. As if he is waiting for them to catch up. In that moment, Ferdinand catches a look at his face. Half is covered by a black cloth, leaving only his eyes visible. As far away as he is, Ferdinand is sure that they are filled with amusement.

A second later, he is off again, down another corridor, towards the direction of the palace’s main entrance. Hubert puts on a burst of speed, aiming to stop the man before he can escape into the city and away.

But the man is not heading towards the entrance.

Instead, he veers away just before and bounds up a flight of stairs towards the ramparts. _But there is nothing in that direction_ , Ferdinand thinks. So why is he going that way? There is no time to stop and think though — the man is almost at the top of the stairs and Hubert is closing in on him.

As Ferdinand watches, the man turns, knife blade flashing in the sun and slashes out at Hubert. “No!” Ferdinand yells, forcing himself faster up the steps. Hubert staggers back, one, two steps, and for a horrifying, heartstopping moment, Ferdinand thinks he might fall.

But then he regains his balance and, clutching at his arm, continues up the staircase. At the top, he pauses and Ferdinand, finally catching up, sees why.

The man stands on the ramparts watching them both. When he spots Ferdinand, he gives a jaunty salute.

And jumps.

“Fuck!” Ferdinand swears, surging forward. He looks over the side, almost scared of what he will find, but the man is not there.

“Where did he go?” Hubert asks, frustrated. “There is nowhere he _could_ go.” He slams a hand into the stone, and then hisses. That is when Ferdinand sees the blood staining his sleeve.

“What happened?” he asks, grabbing Hubert’s wrist. Hubert lets him.

“He caught me with his knife,” he says. “I was not as aware of him as I should have been. It is no matter, though. We must find out where he went.” He tries to pull his arm away, to head back towards the stairs, but Ferdinand does not let him.

“No,” he says. “That can wait.” A strange feeling is roiling in his stomach. Anger, perhaps. But at whom, he does not know.

“It cannot—” Hubert starts.

“It _will_ ,” Ferdinand says. He can hear the cold fury of his voice. Hubert’s face goes carefully blank. “You accuse me of having disregard for my life, but what do you call this? I will not permit you to put your life in danger for _no good reason_.” For a moment, he wonders if Hubert might not get it, if they might just be about to rehash their previous argument, but then Hubert’s face softens.

“Oh,” he says and that _oh_ contains a multitude.

“Yes,” Ferdinand says, anger subsiding a little in the face of Hubert’s acquiescence. He almost leaves it at that, but then he blurts out, before Hubert can make any assumptions, “This does not count for that talk we need to have.” Hubert blinks. His eyes are wide and his chest heaves with the exertion of the chase.

“No,” he agrees, softly. “I know.” Ferdinand nods shakily.

“But for now,” he says, loosening his grip on Hubert’s wrist, “you are going to the infirmary.”

*

Ferdinand waits inside the infirmary for Hubert to be finished. Part of him still does not quite trust Hubert not to leave again without a word, for all that he has agreed to talk now. So he sits beside Hubert as the cut is cleaned and healed. Neither of them speak then, nor on the walk back to Ferdinand’s rooms.

“I wonder what the man was doing,” Ferdinand murmurs eventually, as they stand in the corridor they had started the chase from not an hour before.

“He had a knife,” Hubert points out. “I think it is clear he did not intend anything good.”

“No,” Ferdinand agrees. “That is apparent enough.” He takes his key and pushes it gently into the lock. The click of its opening is deafening in the silence that has grown again between them. If Ferdinand did not know any better, he would think that Hubert is nervous.

Inside his rooms is hardly better than out. Neither of them seems to know what to say to start with. Ferdinand shuffles through a few ways to begin in his mind and discards them all.

Instead, he watches Hubert as he stands in front of him. He is only a handful of paces away, but he has never seemed more distant than in this moment. His frame is stiff and he cannot meet Ferdinand’s gaze head on and Ferdinand wonders, with a sinking feeling, whether insisting on a talk was such a good idea after all. Hubert went all the way to Aegir to _avoid_ talking, not a week ago.

But he also knows that, if they do not talk, whatever this thing is burgeoning between them, they can call that dead and buried. And Ferdinand does not want that. So all he can do is stand and wait for the right words to come to him. In front of him, Hubert shifts, and Ferdinand wonders if he has come to the same conclusion. He hopes he has, at least.

The quiet expands between them. Ferdinand can hear his own breath, his own heart beating. He is sure Hubert can hear it too. He swallows.

“I am sorry,” Hubert says on a sigh, eventually, quietly, as if too reverent of the silence to risk breaking it fully. “I did not mean to… That day… I should not have got so angry with you.” He drops his head and rubs at his eyes tiredly.

“You were not the only one,” Ferdinand allows, with some relief that it was Hubert who spoke first. “Neither of us was particularly inclined to listen, were we?”

“We have always been better at arguing than working together,” Hubert says wryly. He glances at Ferdinand and away again. The sentence seems rehearsed and something about that stings at Ferdinand. Now he looks away, just a bit frustrated. It sounds almost like Hubert has given up on them before they can even attempt to _be_ a them, and he will not let him do it.

“That is not true,” he says, biting back annoyance. He cannot have done so successfully because his tone causes Hubert to finally look fully in his direction, a flash of something in his eyes. A feeling that Ferdinand does not know to name.

 _Good,_ he thinks. _If I can still make Hubert feel_ something… _good._

“It must be so, for you are doing it right now,” Hubert points out.

“Which you are doing your best to provoke and you know it,” Ferdinand snipes back.

“It did not require much provocation,” Hubert responds. “I barely said a word.”

Ignoring this, Ferdinand says, “We _can_ work well together, we have proven it.” He can hear the tinge of desperation in his own voice and winces.

“Up until we no longer did,” Hubert says.

“You cannot honestly believe…” Ferdinand starts and then trails off. He huffs something that might be called a laugh, for all that it is stained with bitterness. “So what were those years during the war, then?” he asks quietly. “We worked together well enough then, did we not?”

“Necessity,” Hubert insists. “We worked well because we had no choice.” Ferdinand hopes he is not imagining the sliver of uncertainty in Hubert’s tone.

“You might believe that yourself but I do not,” he says. “Besides, it takes two people to have a relationship and I know my own mind.”

“ _Why_ are you so—” Hubert starts, a snarl to his voice, before cutting himself off. Ferdinand is perversely gratified to see that he is getting a rise out of him.

“Because you are _wrong_ ,” Ferdinand insists. “You want to convince yourself that this was never going anywhere, _fine_ , you do that. But do not expect that I will happily take part in your self-deception.”

Hubert all but bares his teeth in fury. “I am _trying_ to make this easy for you, but fine,” he snaps. “ _Fine_. What is your alternative?”

“That for some reason, I do not know what, you have given up on me,” Ferdinand shoots back. “That you stopped humouring me. You decided — without my input, I might add — that was it. You are doing it right now too, do not think that I cannot see.”

Hubert, for all the rage of a second ago, now seems stymied. “I… what?” he asks. “I _gave up_ on you?”

“What do you call all of this?” Ferdinand demands, waving an arm around to encompass… he does not know what. “You came in here ready to chalk this up to arguing being our natural state of being, or something, and you want to say that that is not _giving up_? That is the epitome of giving up!”

“I am giving you what you wanted!” Hubert yells.

“Whenever did I give you the indication that this is what I _wanted_? Is this what you somehow convinced yourself of in the midst of your wandering about the countryside? That I wanted to give up?”

“Well, don’t you?”

“No, you absolute bastard! I do not want to give up! When will you get that through that thick skull of yours!” Frustrated, Ferdinand turns away with a shout. He takes a breath and then turns back. “Just why did you think I wanted to anyway?” he asks, quieter now.

Hubert shrugs. “You did not talk to me for days afterwards,” he says, just as softly. “What was I supposed to think?”

“Because I was pissed off! Not because I never wanted anything to do with you again!”

Hubert blinks, taken aback. “I may have misjudged.” Ferdinand almost wants to laugh at it. All of this strife and for such little reason.

“I’ll say,” he mutters.

“You said I was self-deceiving,” Hubert says, “but what about you? You claimed I was merely humouring you. Since when have I humoured you in anything?”

“Alright, so I may have been jumping to conclusions as well, but you worked alongside me until you decided it became too dangerous,” Ferdinand explains. “You never thought I could actually work anything out, did you? The moment that you had a reason to try and shut me down, you took it!” He finds himself growing angry again, and Hubert mirrors him.

“That is not true,” Hubert snaps. “You _were_ in danger. You still _are_ in danger.”

“And I can handle it!”

“But _I_ cannot handle losing you! I _will not_ handle losing you!”

Ferdinand finds himself stunned into silence. For all that Edelgard had hinted, for all the moments between them, he had, deep down, thought that Hubert only wanted a warm body. He had, deep down, thought much the same as the rest of the country — that Hubert was in love with Edelgard.

“What do you mean?” he whispers eventually.

“I mean that I love you,” Hubert replies, equally quiet. He tries for a smile but it comes out twisted and ugly across his face. “I know you do not feel the same, but I cannot let you think—”

“Hold on,” Ferdinand interrupts. “You think I do not feel the same?”

“But, you do not,” Hubert says, although the certainty with which he had said so before seems to have abruptly bled away. “Do you?” There is a moment of quiet. Ferdinand opens his mouth and tries to speak but he cannot find the words. This is a turn of events that he could never have anticipated. But then Hubert looks about to take his silence as proof that Ferdinand does not feel the same and that is something he cannot countenance.

“I thought _you_ did not,” he blurts out. “I thought you were… I thought it was not…” He trails off. Hubert makes a pained noise in the back of his throat, shaking his head.

“What did you _think_ we had been dancing around?” he asks. “It has always been you for me.”

“I thought you loved Edelgard,” Ferdinand confesses. “I thought that I would always come second to that. I was okay with coming second to that.”

Hubert inhales sharply, and then he is there, right in front of Ferdinand. He can feel the warmth radiating from him as he leans in and cups Ferdinand’s face with his hands. Ferdinand’s own hands come up to rest gently on his wrists. “It has always been you,” Hubert repeats in a whisper.

Ferdinand takes a shaky breath. His heart is beating rapidly and he can feel the answering thrum of Hubert’s pulse in his wrists. Their bodies are so close as to be almost touching and yet they are not, held apart by the last vestiges of tension in Hubert’s. “Well?” Ferdinand murmurs. “What are you waiting for?”

For a moment, Hubert does not move, but then he collapses into Ferdinand, lips dragging against Ferdinand’s own, hands coming around to cup Ferdinand’s head. Ferdinand gasps with the heady sensation of it all, pulling Hubert as close to him as he can, wishing that he could pull ever closer.

Hubert’s lips are warm against his own, soft in a way that Ferdinand had not been expecting. Hubert is all sharp angles and hard surfaces; somehow, Ferdinand had expected that of the whole of him. Hubert, apparently feeling him becoming distracted, nips at his lip and tugs slightly. Ferdinand lets out something that might well be a moan, although, if asked, he would deny it. He pulls back slightly and sees the smug quirk to Hubert’s lips.

With a growl, he shoves back into Hubert, bringing their lips together in a crush. This time, the kiss is not soft or slow, it is biting and hungry. It is everything Ferdinand has been feeling for the past week, rolled into one kiss. The anger, the frustration — it all comes out now. Perhaps the same happens with Hubert because he reciprocates just as fiercely, pushing closer and closer to Ferdinand until Ferdinand gives way, letting Hubert drive him steadily backwards so that his legs hit the bed and they are falling, not wanting to let go of one another for even the briefest of moments. The jolt as they hit the mattress causes their teeth to clash and Ferdinand pulls back with sharp inhale. “That was… not the smoothest,” Hubert says, breathing heavy and a wide, involuntary smile making its way across his features. Ferdinand is captivated by it. The smile changes Hubert’s face into something almost entirely new. New and yet familiar, beloved. Ferdinand cannot look away so he does not try to. Instead, he takes a hand from Hubert’s wrist and traces his fingers along Hubert’s lower lip.

Hubert’s eyes darken and his tongue flicks out, catching the tips of Ferdinand’s fingers. Ferdinand shudders. He trails his fingertips down Hubert’s neck and then they catch on the collar of his doublet. He pauses.

“I want this,” Hubert says, voice low and wrecked. _I did that,_ Ferdinand thinks to himself. _That was me._

He swallows. “Okay,” he whispers. His hands start moving again, travelling down to unfasten the first of Hubert’s buttons. “Okay.” They go slowly, all the energy of moments before now dissipated, Ferdinand wanting to take his time.

Hubert waits, patiently, as Ferdinand undoes one button after the other. His fingers skim across Hubert’s shirt underneath and he can feel the warmth of his skin hot against them. Hubert’s arms tremble either side of him. His eyes slide shut as though he is straining not to collapse.

“Might you be prevailed upon to hurry?” he rasps. “You are killing me here.” Ferdinand glances up at him.

“Oh, am I?” he asks. “That _would_ be a shame…” He trails his fingers along the waist of Hubert’s trousers. With a growl, Hubert twists and Ferdinand abruptly finds himself sat in his lap, hands resting on Hubert’s shoulders as Hubert tugs furiously at Ferdinand’s frockcoat.

“Why are there so many buttons?” he grumbles. “How is a man supposed to get _in_?”

“By asking politely,” Ferdinand says primly, pushing Hubert’s hands away and taking charge himself. Once he has unbuttoned them all, Hubert shoves the coat off his shoulders and pulls him in for another kiss, this time tangling his fingers through Ferdinand’s hair, tugging gently. Ferdinand makes an embarrassingly contented sound.

His own hands move downwards, grasping hold of Hubert’s shirt and drawing it up. The skin under it is warm to the touch and he feels Hubert shiver.

Hubert deepens the kiss and Ferdinand hears himself make another embarrassing sound. Hubert pulls back with a huff of a laugh. Ferdinand finds himself tipping forwards to follow his lips. “Mmmm, eager,” Hubert murmurs.

“Like you aren’t,” Ferdinand mutters back, too intent on working out how to get Hubert kissing him again to really care that he is being teased.

“Oh, I am,” Hubert all but purrs and finally, he leans back in to kiss Ferdinand again. Ferdinand takes the kiss hungrily, tugging Hubert as close as he can, so that every part of their bodies is in contact. He can feel Hubert reacting to it, a hardness that presses against Ferdinand’s own.

Hubert twists them again so that Ferdinand is lying on his back on the bed and, very deliberately, grinds down. Ferdinand jerks involuntarily upwards as though he has received an electric shock, gasping. “ _Oh_ ,” he groans. Hubert nips at his jawline and Ferdinand can feel the shape of his smirk against his skin. He finds he does not care, more interested in chasing that electric shock feeling.

“More,” he mumbles, leaning up and burying his face in the junction of Hubert’s neck and shoulder, feeling Hubert’s lips slide along his jaw as he does so. “More.”

“Greedy,” Hubert mutters, but there is nothing in it. He is just as greedy as Ferdinand right now. He obliges Ferdinand and grinds down again, slowly this time. Ferdinand bites at his collarbone in retaliation.

“Stop _teasing_ ,” he mumbles again, this time into Hubert’s skin, making Hubert shudder beneath his lips.

“I’m _hardly_ ,” Hubert says primly, but his voice breaks just slightly as Ferdinand nips again at his neck and he gives into Ferdinand eagerly.

“Faster,” Ferdinand demands. “Come on.” He can feel a heat building in him, urged on by the movement of Hubert against him, intoxicating and glorious. It carries him up to the edge and he can almost feel himself tipping over as he grips Hubert’s shoulders, so hard he wonders if they will bruise.

Hubert pulls back and Ferdinand whines. Hubert laughs softly. “I want it to last,” he murmurs. He noses his way along Ferdinand’s jaw, kissing gently as he goes. Ferdinand tilts his head to the side, giving Hubert more access. One of his hands drifts up and winds its way through Hubert’s hair. He tugs slightly and Hubert responds with a growl and a sharp nip at his jaw. Ferdinand gasps.

“If it doesn’t last,” Ferdinand mumbles, “we can go again. We can keep going forever.” Hubert watches him with an almost disbelieving gaze.

“You mean it,” he murmurs wondrously, as though he had not quite trusted in it until now.

“I mean it,” Ferdinand replies softly.

With a sharp intake of breath, Hubert presses his lips once again to Ferdinand’s own, bringing their hips together again and again with increasing urgency. Ferdinand feels that same heady heat building anew, a swooping sensation in his stomach as he gets nearer and nearer the edge. He feels the heat of Hubert’s breath against his neck and is vaguely aware of the sounds that he is making in return. But he has lost the need to care — his entire focus has narrowed down to this: Hubert’s lips on his skin, his hands at his waist, and the slow drag of his hips.

Hubert gasps against his neck and Ferdinard tips his head, arching his back as he feels himself tipping into an abyss. Hubert’s hips stutter once more and then he slumps against him, breathing heavily. Ferdinand’s limbs feel as though they are made of lead, so little does he want to move right now. Hubert turns his head and presses a kiss to Ferdinand’s collarbone.

“Perhaps without the trousers, next time,” he remarks dryly and Ferdinand has to laugh.

“Yes,” he says, and he sounds disgustingly happy even to himself. “Definitely.”

*

Ferdinand wakes up.

He could not say exactly why he is suddenly certain that he knows who the murderer is, only that he is so. Something has clicked into place just now. Something that he could not see before. Something that his unconscious mind has worked out for him.

“How did he _know_?” he murmurs to himself. Beside him, Hubert shifts in his sleep. Carefully, so as not to wake him, Ferdinand slips from between the covers and pads across to Hubert’s desk. There, he takes a sheet of paper and writes just one thing down.

A name.

Then, he hastily pulls on his discarded clothes from the previous night and leaves. There is one thing he needs to do before he can confront the culprit, one last thing he needs to check, back in his room. The air is cold and bracing against his skin — it is too early for anyone to have come and laid any fires just yet. The only sound he can hear is the gentle clink of guards’ armour as they make their rounds. His breath streams out ahead of him as he strides through the corridors. “How could he have _known_?” he mutters again.

In his rooms, he scrambles to find the right notes from the pile of papers on his desk. Hubert would chide him for the lack of organisation and Ferdinand would usually reply that he knows where everything is and it is fine, thank you very much. Today though, he sees Hubert’s point.

And then, at last, he finds what he is searching for. “Yes,” he says. “Yes.”

“Well done, Prime Minister,” a voice says from behind him. “I see you’ve worked it out.”

Ferdinand puts down the paper — a list of the messengers’ shifts and a record of messages taken, and a particular _time_ — and turns slowly. Leon is standing in the doorway, loaded crossbow in his hands and pointing straight at Ferdinand.

“Leon.”

“Von Aegir,” Leon says, with a sharp grin. “Although we both know you’re not worthy of the name.”

“Were you waiting outside of my rooms?” Ferdinand asks, hoping to stall whatever it is Leon has planned.

“Oh, yes.” Leon smiles again. “Since last night. I was a little disappointed you didn’t come back to see me, but of course, you’re here now.” Ferdinand bites back a curse. If he had but waited for Hubert to wake… 

“Yes,” he says. “Here I am.” He wonders if he has a chance of rushing the man right now, but he has no armour and is just as likely to be struck by a bolt from his weapon as succeed in the venture.

“Well, come along then, Prime Minister,” Leon tells him, gesturing with the crossbow. “We have things to do.”

Which means Ferdinand, unarmed, has no choice but to do as the man instructs, walking ahead of him through the corridors and acutely aware of the crossbow bolt just inches away from his back. He can only hope that Hubert might just now be rousing himself, that he will see Ferdinand’s note and understand.

If only he had taken the opportunity to write a little more, he thinks, but no. There is no use in dwelling on that. All he can do right now is try to find a way out of this mess.

*

Leon leads him to an abandoned cellar. Ferdinand does not recognise the corridors through which they pass to reach it and, with the first tinges of despair, wonders if he is ever likely to return through them. “Over there, please, if you will,” Leon says, nudging him with the crossbow into a dark and dank corner.

“What are you doing?” Ferdinand asks, willing his voice to be even. “You cannot think you will get away with this.”

“Maybe,” Leon shrugs. “Maybe not. But I can’t say I’m all that bothered really.”

“They will come looking for me,” Ferdinand continues, although he is not sure whether he believes his words himself. “You know they will.”

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Leon says cheerfully. “I’m so looking forward to it, in fact. Do you think they’ll cry as you die in their arms?” A cold feeling floods through Ferdinand.

 _You are not getting out of here alive,_ a voice tells him. _You will die here._

Ferdinand has faced death before — every day during the war he had bargained with it and won. But he has never been so certain of it as here and now. He finds himself terrified.

That is when he decides he must do something. He cannot just sit and wait for rescue when he does not know if rescue is forthcoming. He has to _try_.

His best bet, he feels, will be to take Leon by surprise. The risk is that he does not know what weapons Leon has besides the crossbow. And even then, a crossbow bolt at close range is not something Ferdinand desires to experience. He can only hope to lull Leon into a sense of security so that he puts the crossbow down and then Ferdinand will have his chance.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks. He keeps his hands visible, relaxed down by his sides. He does not want to rile Leon up any more than he already is.

“Oh, I think you know,” Leon says. “I know you’re not so stupid as to have failed to work it out, Prime Minister.”

“I know what I think is right,” Ferdinand says. “Why not tell me anyway?”

“I suppose we have time,” Leon allows. The crossbow lowers. Ferdinand watches it avidly. “I had to cleanse the world of traitors, you see. That was my mission.”

“Traitors,” Ferdinand says dully. “Those men were not traitors.”

“Oh, but they were,” Leon insists. “You _all_ are. You’ve betrayed the natural order of things.” He says this with a quiet, unshakeable confidence. He believes exactly what he is preaching.

“The natural order.”

“Someone must be in charge, you see.”

“Someone _is_ in charge now.”

“But not in the _right_ way,” Leon growls suddenly. The crossbow rises ever so slightly again. “You’re trying to break it all down. You’re only looking to destroy everything.”

A chill runs through Ferdinand. Whoever is behind this, whoever Leon is taking orders from, has so thoroughly convinced the man of their truth, Ferdinand can see no way of getting through to him.

“And where do you fit into that?” he asks.

“I go wherever I am instructed, I do whatever I am told,” Leon says. “I will be rewarded for it.”

“Rewarded?” Ferdinand sits up slightly. “How much? If you tell me who is behind this, I will double whatever they have offered.”

Leon laughs. “My reward will not be _money_ ,” he says scathingly. “You cannot pay me to betray my master. My reward is merely the ability to be of even _more_ service. It is as the Goddess commands.” Now, he sets down the crossbow and, fervour burning in his eyes, he leans forward. “If you were to repent,” he starts. “If you repented, the Goddess would forgive. I know it.”

“And you would not kill me?” Ferdinand asks. He starts to make the slightest of moves, shifting so that he is in a position to rush Leon.

“Of course not,” Leon scoffs. “I have to complete my mission. But your repentance… the Goddess would know and she would be merciful.”

He closes his eyes, just momentarily, as though in rapture, and Ferdinand takes his moment. He pushes forward hitting Leon and taking him to the floor. Leon fights like a man possessed, scratching and biting. Ferdinand hits him once, twice in the stomach, battling to hold him down.

And then he stops.

“Ah, ah,” Leon says, breathlessly. “That wasn’t a good idea.”

And he pulls the knife out of Ferdinand’s stomach. Ferdinand grabs at the wound, trying to put pressure on it, even as he can feel the blood, first seeping and now flowing more steadily.

“Oh, no no,” Leon says with a smile. “Oh, no, Prime Minister, that’s not good.” He waves the knife around, spattering blood across his shirt. “You played my hand,” he says. “I had planned to let you live for a while longer, but I can’t do that now, you see? You’ve made it very difficult for me.” He pauses, presses the tip of the knife to his lower lip. “But you’ll die this way, either way, won’t you? Perhaps I should just let you bleed.”

“They are coming,” Ferdinand rasps. He can feel himself weakening with every second he lies there on the floor. “You will not survive this.”

“What need have I of survival?” Leon asks. “I _have_ survived and what has it ever gained me?” Ferdinand shifts backwards along the floor, away from him, to prop himself up against a wall.

“Everyone wants to survive,” he tries.

“I doubt you’ve met everyone,” Leon tells him. “Some of us just don’t _care_.”

“What does the Goddess have to say about that?”

“We give our lives to honour her,” Leon snaps. “She _loves_ us.”

Ferdinand has no answer to this. Leon’s beliefs are so fixed that he knows nothing he could say would give him the slightest pause. His only real hope is that Hubert arrives soon. His head aches with the blood loss and he is starting to lose sensation in his legs. Or he thinks he is — it is somewhat hard to keep things straight right now.

“You have no idea how hard it was to say those things,” Leon says, conversationally. Ferdinand, light-headed and barely following, frowns.

“What things?” he asks.

“When you questioned me, I pretended to support Edelgard,” Leon continues, barely registering Ferdinand’s words. “By the Goddess, it was hard! That bitch stole everything from me, from _us_. And for the past few years I have had to sit here and pretend none of it had happened! I would have stuck her like a pig if I had had the slightest opportunity.” He sighs. “But no, my instructions were otherwise.”

“Instructions?” Ferdinand only says this to keep Leon talking. He can feel the knife wound in his stomach still seeping blood. He knows that, when Leon is finished boasting, he will not keep Ferdinand alive. There is too much risk of them being found. Which is why Ferdinand _has_ to keep him talking. To give Hubert time to find him.

Oh, how he hopes Hubert will come for him.

“Yes,” Leon says, smugly. “You surely don’t think that you’re unopposed here? Goddess, it enrages me, the _entitlement_ of you people. You think you can swan in and tear everything up and the people will just be okay with it all? You make me sick!”

This, Ferdinand thinks, is quite rich of a man who seems to want to return to ways that embodied the word ‘entitlement’.

“How did you do it?” he asks. “Get them to come with you, I mean.”

“Oh, that was easy.” Ferdinand takes a moment to silently thank the Goddess that Leon is the type of man to want to brag. “I knew Ansel anyway, it was simple enough to just arrange a meeting to check something over. Dominik was harder, I admit. The man would _not_ leave his post for love nor money! In the end, I told him I wanted to discuss some changes to make to the guard.” He barks out a laugh. “You should have seen his eyes light up! The old fool really thought someone would be interested in what he had to say!”

 _I was interested,_ Ferdinand thinks. _I would have been interested._

“As for that guard — Hanno, was it? — well, all that was required with him was a bit of this lovely chemical, knocks people right out. He was a big man though — it was a real effort getting him anywhere after that.”

Ferdinand grits his teeth, from the pain in his abdomen and the pain of hearing Leon talk so cavalierly about having murdered people he had known personally.

“And the traitor’s death? Why that?”

“You just weren’t getting it,” Leon says, shaking his head, eyes wide. “You weren’t _scared_ , I had to make you scared.”

“But surely…” Ferdinand sucks in a breath as another sharp stab of pain hits him. “Surely you did not want us to find out the motive behind it until you had killed more people.”

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. We were never trying to kill everyone. We were just trying to get to _you_.” A chill spreads through Ferdinand. If that was true, if he was their endgame, then it did not matter to Leon whether he got caught. So long as he had killed Ferdinand, he had won.

“Who is we?” he asks, desperately trying to keep Leon occupied still.

“Haven’t you worked it out yet?” Leon gives a sharp laugh. “It’s your own dear mother.” The words reach him as if he is underwater. His… _mother_?

“My mother is dead,” Ferdinand says dully. She died. He knows she died. There was a funeral.

“Oh, I assure you, she is very much not,” Leon says with a shark-like grin. Ferdinand’s heart stutters and he struggles to draw in a breath. His mother.

“No,” he says. “She is dead.”

“She said you would say that,” Leon tells him. “She knew her traitor son would believe she had died of a broken heart. You always did underestimate her.”

“She is _dead_.”

“Remember when you were — oh, how old was it? — seven and she took you to the beach. Just you and her. It was the last time she took you anywhere.” A smile creeps across his features. “You looked at her and said you wanted to change the world. And she knew that you would never follow in your father’s footsteps.”

“She said no,” Ferdinand murmurs. “She said, no you won’t.” He remembers it well, the savage hatred in his mother’s voice. The first time he had heard anything but love — or love as she knew it — from her.

His mother is alive.

His mother wants him dead.

He laughs, slightly hysterically, because who else? Who else loved his father enough to start this? Not his son, that was for sure.

Leon frowns. “Why are you laughing?” he snaps. “You’re going to _die_.”

Perhaps it is the blood loss, finally starting to affect him, perhaps the desperation, but all Leon’s question serves to do is make him laugh more.

“You…” he starts, and then has to break off, wheezing. “You would not understand. You cannot hope to understand. Do you really think that this will _help_ your cause? That my death will be the catalyst for Aegir’s return to power? You are stupider than I thought.”

“Of course it will,” Leon growls. “You don’t know just how many people support us! We’ll wrest the power from you usurpers! That bitch emperor has no idea what is coming to her!”

“One hundred, if that,” Ferdinand says, remembering the report he had had a chance to glance at the night before.

“What?” Leon is bewildered. “One hundred what?”

“People who support you.” Ferdinand draws in a shuddering breath. He glances at Leon and laughs at the look on his face. “You did not know,” he says incredulously. “You really did not know.”

“It’s a _lie_ ,” Leon snarls. “You’re _lying_ to me, trying to get me to give up, but I won’t. I will kill you here.”

“I am not,” Ferdinand responds, suddenly quite calm. “My mother has been lying to you. She has probably been lying to herself too. The glorious revolution is not coming. You are on your own.” He watches the emotions flicker across Leon’s face. Disbelief followed by anger followed by bitter resignation.

“That may be so,” he says. “But it won’t matter. You’ll still be dead.”

“And so will you.”

“I was always dead,” Leon snaps. “I have always been dead. You think this world is any better than the last? You think you’ve done any good?”

“We have hardly had the chance to,” Ferdinand says wryly, but privately, he thinks Leon might have a point. After all, just how different is the world they are trying to create from that of their forebears?

“At least under Ludwig you knew where you stood,” Leon continues.

“Yes,” Ferdinand murmurs. “Underneath a hangman’s noose.” He shifts slightly, moves his hand to better press against the wound in his stomach. Leon flinches as if expecting Ferdinand to leap at him again.

He is nervous, Ferdinand realises. He does not know why Leon has not yet assured himself of Ferdinand’s death — he might die from blood loss, it is true, but he also might _not_ — but now Leon is twitchy. The longer they stay here, the more likely it is that they are found. Maybe Leon was serious about having Ferdinand die in his friends’ arms. _That is not a very certain way of killing someone,_ he thinks and has to bite back another laugh.

“They _will_ come,” Ferdinand murmurs. “You know they will.”

“Shut up,” Leon says, but it lacks any heat. For all that he is willing to die for the cause in theory, when it comes down to it, he is just as scared as any soldier Ferdinand fought with or against on the battlefield. Every moment that Ferdinand stays alive is a moment won.

“I would be worried,” he says conversationally. “If they catch you, you will wish that you had died.” Leon’s eyes flick to his own. _Ah,_ Ferdinand thinks, _clearly the possibility of being kept alive has not occurred to him until now._ “Oh, yes,” he continues. “I would not want to face Hubert after this.” He feels a pang as he realises that he will probably not be facing the man himself. He wishes he had left more than a single name on a scrap of paper.

“I don’t care,” Leon says. “It is as the Goddess wills.” But Ferdinand can tell he is trying to convince himself of the fact. Ferdinand huffs out a laugh.

“So you keep saying. If you say it enough, do you really think you will believe it?” He shifts, gasping slightly with the pain. Oh, but he hopes Hubert will be here soon. He would even be happy to see Linhardt or Dorothea, although the latter would no doubt tease him mercilessly for having become the damsel in distress.

The thought of not seeing that, of dying before he can ever see them again, brings a lump to his throat and he swallows roughly. It is getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open. Periodically, he finds himself dropping off, only to jerk himself awake with a hiss of pain.

“Tell me something,” he says, desperate to keep himself occupied. “There were things that did not add up: the letter sent to Ansel, the Dagdan brooch, the von Aegir ring. What was that about?”

“I wanted to have a bit of fun,” Leon says with a shrug. “Although the ring slipped off my finger by accident. I didn’t mean for you to find it.” He seems on firmer ground, explaining everything to Ferdinand, less worried.

“And the rock? That was you too?”

“I saw a chance and I took it. Shame it didn’t work out, but then we would not have this time together if it had.” Ferdinand subsides again, drained of nearly all his energy now. He hopes fiercely that someone arrives soon.

Leon starts suddenly. “Do you hear that?” he asks, spinning round towards the wall on Ferdinand’s left.

“Hear what?” Ferdinand manages.

“That!” Leon cries, waving a hand at the wall. He has dropped the knife in his terror, eyes wide and whites almost glowing in the dim light. Ferdinand listens and thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can hear the slightest scratching sound.

“Rats, probably,” he says, although he cannot be certain.

“Yes,” Leon says, relaxing the tiniest bit. “Yes, you must be right.”

He leans down to pick up the knife and that is when the wall explodes inwards.

Bricks fly towards them and Ferdinand flinches automatically, raising his arms weakly to protect himself from the debris. But nothing hits them and he glances up to find it all floating in midair, stopped in its tracks by Hubert, radiating fury.

Ferdinand has never been so happy to see the man in his life.

“You,” Hubert growls. The debris falls to the floor with a crash, dust rising from the chaos. Hubert strides forward.

Leon, his target, looks as though he might expire from fright where he stands. Ferdinand cannot say he can muster much in the way of sympathy though. Hubert flicks two fingers towards Leon, who starts clutching at his throat as though he cannot breathe. His face turns red, eyes bulging. He scratches at his neck desperately, legs collapsing beneath him. Hubert stands, impassively, over him.

“That is enough.” It is Edelgard, standing in the entranceway that Hubert had created. For a moment, Ferdinand thinks that Hubert might disobey her, such is the anger on his face, but he pulls back. Leon gulps in air, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

“Here.” Ferdinand glances up to see Linhardt crouching over him. A coolness washes over him as Linhardt starts his healing spell. He can feel his eyes slipping shut, but he makes one last effort to keep them open because Hubert is there, kneeling down on his other side and pushing a hand through Ferdinand’s hair.

“Hello,” Ferdinand whispers. With Hubert here, he feels a bone-deep calm. He raises a shaking hand, still weak, and brushes it over Hubert’s cheek. Hubert grasps it and squeezes tightly.

“Stay awake,” he murmurs. “Ferdinand, stay awake.”

“‘M trying,” Ferdinand mumbles, but he can feel his eyes starting to close now.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” he hears Linhardt mutter. “But the healing is starting to work now. He will be fine.” Hubert starts to move, but Ferdinand grips his hand tighter and the movement subsides.

He feels a hand stroking back his hair and he leans into it instinctively, feeling the last vestiges of consciousness drifting away from him. “You’re alright now,” he thinks someone tells him. “You’re alright.”

*

Ferdinand wakes up in the hospital wing, bright sunlight streaming through the windows and making his eyes water. He closes them again, squeezing against the sting of the light. He can hear someone bustling around the room, straightening sheets and humming as they work. Cautiously, he opens his eyes again.

He feels as though he has been hit by a siege engine, aching and bruised. Linhardt seems to have healed his wounds but he cannot do anything about the sheer exhaustion Ferdinand is experiencing now. He does not know how long he has slept, but he knows he could easily sleep for hours more.

“Ah, Prime Minister, you’re awake!” The nurse has glanced over, beaming. “How are you?” he asks.

Ferdinand opens his mouth to respond but finds that his throat is too dry to get any words out.

“Oh, I do apologise,” the nurse says. “Here, let me get you some water.” He wanders over to the nurse’s station and comes back with a glass of water. Ferdinand gingerly shifts to prop himself more upright in the bed and takes it from him.

“Thank you,” he says, after he has slaked his thirst. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Only about a day,” the nurse tells him. “You were brought in around mid-morning yesterday.”

 _Mid-morning_ , Ferdinand thinks. So he only spent perhaps an hour, if that, with Leon in that dark cellar. It had felt like forever.

“That reminds me,” the nurse continues cheerily. “I’m to send word to the Emperor the moment you awaken, so if you’ll excuse me, I shall do just that.” Ferdinand gives a slight nod, feeling himself already wanting to drift back to sleep. Instead, though, he sits himself up and takes another sip of water. He wonders, briefly, if anyone came to visit him in the time he was unconscious. He dismisses the idea — they were, after all, probably busy interrogating Leon even now — but he cannot quite shake it fully.

He is jolted out of his thoughts by the arrival of Edelgard and Dorothea, bursting through the doors and hurrying over. He does not think he has ever seen the two of them look quite so rushed.

“Ferdie!” Dorothea cries. “Don’t you dare worry me like that again!”

“I will endeavour not to,” Ferdinand says with a laugh. Already he is feeling much better, their presence a balm to him.

“How are you feeling?” Edelgard asks, leaning to press a kiss to his forehead. “I was told you had just woken up.”

“Worse than I did at any point during the war,” Ferdinand tells her. “But alive.”

“I am glad we made it to you in time,” Edelgard says. She takes up Ferdinand’s hand and squeezes it. “I do not wish to countenance what might have happened otherwise…” She trails off, troubled.

“But you did make it,” Ferdinand says softly. “And I’m still here.” He pauses. “How did you find me in the end anyway?”

“I do not pretend to understand,” Edelgard starts, “but Hubert and Linhardt between them managed to form a tracking spell of sorts. You would have to ask them for the details, but it gave us an approximation of where you were and then it was just a matter of searching.”

“When we saw you lying there—” Dorothea starts, before cutting herself off. “I could have killed that man myself for what he did to you,” she says fiercely.

“He is not dead, is he?” Ferdinand says suddenly alarmed.

“Not for lack of trying,” Edelgard says wryly. “No, Leon — if that is truly his name — remains alive. I have men questioning him right now.”

“You mean, Hubert?” Ferdinand asks. “That is why he is not here, I assume.” Edelgard exchanges a glance with Dorothea.

“No,” she says carefully. “I could not let him this time around.”

Ferdinand takes that information and chews on it. “Does he know I am awake?” he asks. He has an almost morbid fascination to find out just how much Hubert is avoiding him right now. Later, when he lets it, it will hurt.

“I imagine he does,” Edelgard says. She obviously sees something in Ferdinand’s expression because she sighs and clasps his hand tighter. “He is likely away brooding,” she explains. “You know Hubert and his… reluctance, shall we say, to confront feelings.”

“I would be perfectly happy to have a little talk with him,” Dorothea offers. Ferdinand has no doubt that she would as well, and also no doubt that Hubert would come out of it feeling just a bit shell-shocked.

“No, it is fine,” he waves her away gently. “I am perfectly capable of forcing the man to talk myself. But enough of that. Has Leon told you anything yet?”

“Oh, he has been singing like a bird,” Edelgard replies. “You almost cannot _stop_ him telling us things. Of course, most of it we have known for a while, but of course we will not tell _him_ so.”

“What about my mother?” Edelgard hesitates.

“While you were unconscious, Hubert’s men raided the stronghold where your mother and her followers had been hiding out. They numbered only few, but fought to the last man.”

“So, she is truly dead now.”

“We have reason to believe so, yes.” Ferdinand feels a strange pang of loss at the knowledge. He had always known that his mother’s love for him was contingent on his being the heir, his _father’s_ heir, but to find out, within a day, that she was alive, sent someone to kill him, and then had died is a lot to take in.

“What about support in Aegir as a whole? Can we expect reprisals?”

“There is none,” Edelgard explains. “Whatever she told Leon, she was exaggerating to an extreme degree. No one came to her aid and, since the raid, no one seems to have felt inclined to mount any opposition.”

“They may be biding their time,” Ferdinand murmurs.

“They may,” Edelgard admits with a shrug, “but we shall deal with that as it comes.”

“I believe we need to expand the government,” Ferdinand tells her. “I have been thinking about what Leon said, how we are hardly better than our forebears, and I think we need to let the people have their say in how we run the country.”

Edelgard raises her eyebrows. “You do, do you?” Ferdinand gives a firm nod.

“I think it is a good idea,” Dorothea chimes in. “Edie, you would not know, you have never lacked for power. But the only way to stop something like this happening again is removing the need for the people to take matters into their own hands.”

“What would you suggest?”

“Each region should have their own autonomous governments, elected by the people,” Ferdinand starts. “That government would cover day to day running within the region, but would also elect someone to join the governance of Adrestria as a whole.”

“That would rather remove my role, would it not?” Edelgard says dryly. “But you both have a point. I cannot allow my reign to be destabilised every time someone does not like what I am doing. I shall think on it.” The look that Dorothea gives Edelgard is so lovestruck that Ferdinand has to look away for a second.

“Shall I leave you to it?” he asks, dryly. “Oh, wait. I cannot.”

“Ferdie, don’t be rude,” Dorothea says, swiping gently at his knee.

“Hardly!” Ferdinand cries, with a laugh.

“Behave,” Edelgard tells them both, “or the nurse is going to kick us out.”

“I would like to see him try,” Ferdinand says, pushing himself up and looking around. “Do you think we could get him over here?”

“Hilarious.”

“Yes, I thought so.”

They lapse into a comfortable kind of silence. Dorothea’s hand rests on his shin and Edelgard leans forwards in her chair, as if she has no real need to be anywhere else. Ferdinand knows this cannot be true, so he is especially glad of her presence.

The only person missing is Hubert.

Ferdinand feels an odd pang at his absence. Part of him wishes that he had found Hubert at his bedside when he had woken up. Another part of him realises that it would not have been Hubert’s way to do such a thing. A tiny part of him, a small but distinct voice, wonders if Hubert is somehow _ashamed_ of him.

“When do you think I will be allowed out of here?” he asks, to take his mind off it. “I am already quite bored of this place.”

“I am sure you could ask the nurse,” Dorothea tells him, turning as if to wave the man over. Ferdinand jerks forward and grabs onto her wrist before she can do so, wincing at the pain in his abdomen.

“No,” he hisses. “Don’t.”

“Whyever not?” she asks, confused.

Ferdinand glances around to make sure that no one is nearby and whispers, “He scares me.”

“He _scares_ you?” Dorothea exclaims. Ferdinand shushes her hastily.

“Not so loud,” he implores.

“I think what Ferdinand means to say,” Edelgard cuts in, “is that he is intimidated by this man. On account of his last visit here.”

“Oh?” Dorothea says, leaning in. “I do not believe I have heard this one.” Ferdinand groans, leaning back against the headboard of the infirmary bed, arm across his eyes, and resigning himself to embarrassment. But it is the kind of embarrassment he does not mind so much, he realises, as Edelgard starts to tell the story. It is, after all, somewhat tempered by the fact that he is glad to be alive to hear Edelgard speaking.

Even if it is, once again, at the expense of his own dignity.

*

That night, Ferdinand lies awake in bed, unable to sleep. Something about the dark, about the solitude, leaves him faintly on edge. Every time he hears someone pacing down the corridor outside, he flinches. The shadows in his room, the glimpses of moonlight as it shines through the shutters, out of the corner of his eye seem like looming figures reaching over him. A wind blows outside, rustling leaves, and, more than once while drifting off, he jerks awake at a noise, the providence of which he cannot locate.

When it happens for the fifth time, he gives up. He slips out of bed, feeling the floor cold under his bare feet, and pulls on his night robe. Then, he walks across his room and opens the door.

The guard outside starts, clearly not expecting him to be awake at this time of night. Ferdinand pauses, unsure how to explain to him just what he is planning. In the end, he goes with a blunt, unquestionable certainty. “I am going to visit von Vestra,” he declares in a tone that sounds much more confident than he feels.

“Of course, sir,” is all the guard says, evidently still surprised enough by Ferdinand’s appearance that he does not know how to react. Ferdinand gives him a nod and departs, striding away down the corridor with as much dignity as a night robe will allow.

It is not much.

He does not pass many people in the corridors, although he knows that Edelgard has increased the number of guards patrolling, just as a precaution. He is glad, in a way. He barely wants to admit to himself that he might need Hubert tonight, to be able to sleep, let alone admit it to someone else.

He winds his way through the corridors, bare feet pattering softly against the floor. All too soon, he is in the wing where Hubert has his rooms. He pauses just around the corner from them, resting a hand against the wall and wondering if he has made the right choice here. After all, Hubert did not come to visit him earlier. What if he was supposed to understand something from that non-appearance? He takes a deep breath and slowly releases it.

Feeling oddly nervous, he knocks softly on Hubert’s door. There is a moment and then he hears Hubert’s rasping voice. “Come in.”

Taking a deep breath, Ferdinand turns the handle and pushes the door open. Hubert is not looking at the doorway, instead seemingly preoccupied by prodding at the detritus in the fireplace with a poker. He is wearing only a loose white shirt and his trousers, cravat and jacket flung haphazardly across the floor. Ferdinand thinks he looks quite tense, shoulders hunched up near his ears.

“I would have thought you would be in the interrogation still,” he says lightly. Hubert starts almost violently, dropping the poker with a clang and staring wide-eyed at Ferdinand. It is though he was not expecting Ferdinand here in his room. He visibly takes a second to get past the shock before clearing his throat and giving a grim smile.

“No,” he says roughly. “I was banned.”

“Banned?” Ferdinand parrots, surprised. “Why?”

“Edelgard was under the impression that, had I been in there with her, Leon might not have remained alive, shall we say.”

“Why would she think that?” Ferdinand asks. Hubert looks confused.

“Do you not remember what happened in the cellar?” He takes a step forward, raising his hands as though to reach for Ferdinand, and then stops, hands dropping back down by his side.

“I do,” Ferdinand says. “I just… I never thought that Leon might… that you might still…” He trails off, unsure as to what he wants to say. Hubert’s eyes spark with something like anger.

“I wanted to kill him,” he growls fiercely. “I _still_ want to kill him.”

Ferdinand takes a step further into the room, closing the door behind him with a soft snick. He does not know what to make of the way his heart starts beating faster at Hubert’s declaration.

“But you did not.”

“Not through _choice_ .” Hubert takes a great shuddering breath and runs his hands through his hair. “Ferdinand, I saw you in danger and I could not _think_. I was supposed to just disarm Leon and instead I almost killed him before anyone could get answers from him.”

“What are you saying?” Ferdinand asks. It had not occurred to him to be worried, but he suddenly is. Worried that Hubert might be rethinking everything.

“I do not know,” Hubert admits. “That I love you so much I cannot even think straight? That the mere thought of you coming to harm sent me into a tailspin?” He drops his hands and Ferdinand sees that they are shaking ever so slightly. He swallows.

“If it makes any difference, I was quite glad to see you,” Ferdinand says quietly. “Regardless of whether you nearly killed him or not.” He laughs softly, self-deprecatingly. “Actually, I was rather more than quite glad.” He looks to the floor at this last part, not wanting to meet Hubert’s gaze. “I thought I was going to die.” His voice breaks.

Hubert makes a wounded noise and, within two paces, crosses the space between them to pull Ferdinand into his arms. Ferdinand buries his face into Hubert’s chest and feels the brush of Hubert’s breath against his neck. He had not realised exactly how much he had needed the contact until now. He wonders if he is holding on just this side of too tightly, but Hubert is gripping him with as much strength, as though he needs it just as much.

“You did not come to visit me,” Ferdinand mumbles into his shirt. He had not meant to say it, but now that it is out, he realises that he was hurt by it. Hubert pushes gently at his upper arms and Ferdinand loosens his grip, lifting his gaze to look him in the eye. Hubert looks entirely undone, expression open in a way that Ferdinand does not think he has ever seen before.

“I am sorry,” he whispers. “I could not bear to see you lying there.” He moves a hand to rest against Ferdinand’s chest, directly over his heart. “And I was… ashamed, in all honesty. I did not like to admit that I had lost control quite so thoroughly,” he continues. “You are so dear to me.” It warms Ferdinand and he leans in to rest his head on Hubert’s collarbone.

“I find I am quite fond of you too,” he says softly. Hubert’s thumb rubs gently at his chest.

“Somehow, that fact was not lost on me.” Hubert’s voice is wry and Ferdinand huffs slightly in response, but he cannot really muster any sort of anger at Hubert. He is exactly where he wants to be.

“I thought you might be ashamed of me,” Ferdinand admits in a small voice. “That you did not come to see me because you did not want anyone to know.”

Hubert says nothing for a long second and Ferdinand wonders if he has rendered him speechless. Then he speaks. “I would never be ashamed of you,” he says roughly. “If you asked it of me, I would shout from the rooftops of how much I love you.”

Ferdinand lets out a shuddering sigh and squeezes his eyes tight shut. “You might scare a few people if you did that,” Ferdinand murmurs, the slightest of trembles to his voice, “so I shall not insist you do so.

“But you do know?” Hubert asks insistently. “Now at least.”

“Yes,” Ferdinand breathes. “I do.” He pauses. “I am not sure I really believed that,” he continues. “It is just that you were not there when I woke up and I just… I wondered.” A thought occurs to him and, with a smirk, he says, “Edelgard said you were brooding.”

He pulls back to watch Hubert’s face as he raises his eyes to the heavens and sighs.

“I might have to admit she is right, there,” he allows. “For want of a better word, that is what I was doing.”

For that, Ferdinand has to tug him into a kiss. Hubert sighs into his mouth and grips him tightly, pulling him closer until there is not a molecule of air between them. Ferdinand is abruptly glad that he is still here to have this. Hubert nips at his lower lip and Ferdinand leans in ever closer, pushing himself up onto his tiptoes.

When he finds he has to take a breath, he breaks away. He can feel the jackrabbit beat of Hubert’s pulse under his hand, where it rests against Hubert’s neck, and he knows he must be as obviously affected. He drops back down and rests his forehead against Hubert’s chest. They stand there, both breathing heavily, still wrapped together so closely that Ferdinand barely knows where he ends and Hubert begins.

“Edelgard told me your mother is dead,” Hubert says after a moment. He says it tentatively, as though he thinks that he needs to tread carefully around the topic. Perhaps he does. Ferdinand is still working out what to feel about it.

“Yes,” he says. “Although I think I have not truly called her my mother for some time.”

“But still.”

“I will not miss her,” Ferdinand says. It sounds harsh, and his tone is stilted, but he wants to say it. He wants Hubert to understand. “How can I miss what I never really had? She had given me up as her child from the moment I took Edelgard’s side over my father’s,” he explains. “That was how she was. All for the continuation of the von Aegir line. I knew that when I joined the war. I took it into account.”

“Did she not see that, when it came down to you or your father, you were the surer bet?” Hubert asks.

“I think she had sided with my father for so long, she did not know how not to,” Ferdinand says. “I think… I am sad for the relationship we _could_ have had. And for the life _she_ could have had. My first memory of her is running through the gardens at home, playing hide-and-seek. But my father got to her eventually.”

He has been saying this all to Hubert’s chest, having regained his position of his head rested on Hubert’s shoulder, but now Hubert nudges his chin with his hand, imploring him to look up and forcing them to separate just the slightest. He does and he does not see pity in Hubert’s eyes — he had not _really_ expected to and yet — but a fierceness that he cannot really name.

“You have us now,” Hubert tells him. “We are your family. We have always been your family.”

“Well, ‘always’ might be stretching it,” Ferdinand replies with a smile, which grows wider as Hubert rolls his eyes. It fades away as he says, seriously, “I know.”

Hubert looks at him for a moment longer. “Good,” he says eventually.

“The same applies with you.” Ferdinand speaks softly, but no less seriously than Hubert.

“I know,” Hubert echoes.

He pulls Ferdinand back in close and Ferdinand feels his entire body relax for the first time in the past day. He thinks he could fall asleep right here in Hubert’s arms.

“Oh, no, you do not,” Hubert tells him and Ferdinand realises he must have said that last bit out loud. “Come on, you can fall asleep in bed.”

“Will you come too?” Ferdinand mumbles, already starting to feel tiredness creeping up on him.

“If you want me,” Hubert says.

“I always want you,” Ferdinand tells him, before a yawn cracks his jaw. When he looks at Hubert, he finds him watching him with such fondness that it almost leaves him breathless.

“Bed,” Hubert repeats and Ferdinand lets himself be led over to it. Hubert pushes aside the covers and sits, back against the headboard, pulling Ferdinand into the hollow of his legs. Ferdinand goes willingly, resting his head against Hubert’s chest and tangling his fingers with Hubert’s own. His eyes start to drift shut and Hubert’s other hand cards through his hair, coming to rest gently cupping at the nape of his neck.

And then, finally, he can go to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> beta'ed by shri @sunshinejock.
> 
> any remaining errors are mine.


End file.
